WILLIAM
SHAKESPEARE
Good friend for Jesus sake forbeare
To digg the dust encloased heare:
Blest be ye man yt spares these stones,
And curst be he yt moves my bones.
TITANIA AND THE CLOWN
Helena had been Demetrius' sweetheart
long before his marriage with Hermia had been thought of, and being very
silly, like all jealous people, she could not see that it was not poor
Hermia's fault that Demetrius wished to marry her instead of his own lady,
Helena. She knew that if she told Demetrius that Hermia was going, as she
was, to the wood outside Athens, he would follow her, “and I can follow
him, and at least I shall see him,” she said to herself. So she went to
him, and betrayed her friend's secret.
Now this wood where Lysander was to meet Hermia, and where the other two
had decided to follow them, was full of fairies, as most woods are, if one
only had the eyes to see them, and in this wood on this night were the
King and Queen of the fairies, Oberon and Titania. Now fairies are very
wise people, but now and then they can be quite as foolish as mortal folk.
Oberon and Titania, who might have been as happy as the days were long,
had thrown away all their joy in a foolish quarrel. They never met without
saying disagreeable things to each other, and scolded each other so
dreadfully that all their little fairy followers, for fear, would creep
into acorn cups and hide them there.
So, instead of keeping one happy Court and dancing all night through in
the moonlight as is fairies' use, the King with his attendants wandered
through one part of the wood, while the Queen with hers kept state in
another. And the cause of all this trouble was a little Indian boy whom
Titania had taken to be one of her followers. Oberon wanted the child to
follow him and be one of his fairy knights; but the Queen would not give
him up.
On this night, in a mossy moonlit glade, the King and Queen of the fairies
met.
“Ill met by moonlight, proud Titania,” said the King.
“What! jealous, Oberon?” answered the Queen. “You spoil everything with
your quarreling. Come, fairies, let us leave him. I am not friends with
him now.”
“It rests with you to make up the quarrel,” said the King.
“Give me that little Indian boy, and I will again be your humble servant
and suitor.”
“Set your mind at rest,” said the Queen. “Your whole fairy kingdom buys
not that boy from me. Come, fairies.”
And she and her train rode off down the moonbeams.
“Well, go your ways,” said Oberon. “But I'll be even with you before you
leave this wood.”
Then Oberon called his favorite fairy, Puck. Puck was the spirit of
mischief. He used to slip into the dairies and take the cream away, and
get into the churn so that the butter would not come, and turn the beer
sour, and lead people out of their way on dark nights and then laugh at
them, and tumble people's stools from under them when they were going to
sit down, and upset their hot ale over their chins when they were going to
drink.
“Now,” said Oberon to this little sprite, “fetch me the flower called
Love-in-idleness. The juice of that little purple flower laid on the eyes
of those who sleep will make them, when they wake, to love the first thing
they see. I will put some of the juice of that flower on my Titania's
eyes, and when she wakes she will love the first thing she sees, were it
lion, bear, or wolf, or bull, or meddling monkey, or a busy ape.”
While Puck was gone, Demetrius passed through the glade followed by poor
Helena, and still she told him how she loved him and reminded him of all
his promises, and still he told her that he did not and could not love
her, and that his promises were nothing. Oberon was sorry for poor Helena,
and when Puck returned with the flower, he bade him follow Demetrius and
put some of the juice on his eyes, so that he might love Helena when he
woke and looked on her, as much as she loved him. So Puck set off, and
wandering through the wood found, not Demetrius, but Lysander, on whose
eyes he put the juice; but when Lysander woke, he saw not his own Hermia,
but Helena, who was walking through the wood looking for the cruel
Demetrius; and directly he saw her he loved her and left his own lady,
under the spell of the purple flower.
When Hermia woke she found Lysander gone,
and wandered about the wood trying to find him. Puck went back and told
Oberon what he had done, and Oberon soon found that he had made a mistake,
and set about looking for Demetrius, and having found him, put some of the
juice on his eyes. And the first thing Demetrius saw when he woke was also
Helena. So now Demetrius and Lysander were both following her through the
wood, and it was Hermia's turn to follow her lover as Helena had done
before. The end of it was that Helena and Hermia began to quarrel, and
Demetrius and Lysander went off to fight. Oberon was very sorry to see his
kind scheme to help these lovers turn out so badly. So he said to Puck--
“These two young men are going to fight. You must overhang the night with
drooping fog, and lead them so astray, that one will never find the other.
When they are tired out, they will fall asleep. Then drop this other herb
on Lysander's eyes. That will give him his old sight and his old love.
Then each man will have the lady who loves him, and they will all think
that this has been only a Midsummer Night's Dream. Then when this is done,
all will be well with them.”
So Puck went and did as he was told, and when the two had fallen asleep
without meeting each other, Puck poured the juice on Lysander's eyes, and
said:--
“When thou wakest,
Thou takest
True delight
In the sight
Of thy former lady's eye:
Jack shall have Jill;
Nought shall go ill.”
Meanwhile Oberon found Titania asleep on a bank where grew wild
thyme, oxlips, and violets, and woodbine, musk-roses and eglantine. There
Titania always slept a part of the night, wrapped in the enameled skin of
a snake. Oberon stooped over her and laid the juice on her eyes, saying:--
“What thou seest when thou wake,
Do it for thy true love take.”
Now, it happened that when Titania woke the first thing she saw was
a stupid clown, one of a party of players who had come out into the wood
to rehearse their play. This clown had met with Puck, who had clapped an
ass's head on his shoulders so that it looked as if it grew there.
Directly Titania woke and saw this dreadful monster, she said, “What angel
is this? Are you as wise as you are beautiful?”
“If I am wise enough to find my way out of this wood, that's enough for
me,” said the foolish clown.
“Do not desire to go out of the wood,” said Titania. The spell of the
love-juice was on her, and to her the clown seemed the most beautiful and
delightful creature on all the earth. “I love you,” she went on. “Come
with me, and I will give you fairies to attend on you.”
So she called four fairies, whose names were Peaseblossom, Cobweb, Moth,
and Mustardseed.
“You must attend this gentleman,” said the Queen. “Feed him with apricots
and dewberries, purple grapes, green figs, and mulberries. Steal
honey-bags for him from the bumble-bees, and with the wings of painted
butterflies fan the moonbeams from his sleeping eyes.”
“I will,” said one of the fairies, and all the others said, “I will.”
“Now, sit down with me,” said the Queen to the clown, “and let me stroke
your dear cheeks, and stick musk-roses in your smooth, sleek head, and
kiss your fair large ears, my gentle joy.”
“Where's Peaseblossom?” asked the clown with the ass's head. He did not
care much about the Queen's affection, but he was very proud of having
fairies to wait on him. “Ready,” said Peaseblossom.
“Scratch my head, Peaseblossom,” said the clown. “Where's Cobweb?”
“Ready,” said Cobweb.
“Kill me,” said the clown, “the red bumble-bee on the top of the thistle
yonder, and bring me the honey-bag. Where's Mustardseed?”
“Ready,” said Mustardseed.
“Oh, I want nothing,” said the clown. “Only just help Cobweb to scratch. I
must go to the barber's, for methinks I am marvelous hairy about the
face.”
“Would you like anything to eat?” said the fairy Queen.
“I should like some good dry oats,” said the clown--for his donkey's head
made him desire donkey's food--“and some hay to follow.”
“Shall some of my fairies fetch you new nuts from the squirrel's house?”
asked the Queen.
“I'd rather have a handful or two of good dried peas,” said the clown.
“But please don't let any of your people disturb me; I am going to sleep.”
Then said the Queen, “And I will wind thee in my arms.”
And so when Oberon came along he found
his beautiful Queen lavishing kisses and endearments on a clown with a
donkey's head.
And before he released her from the enchantment, he persuaded her to give
him the little Indian boy he so much desired to have. Then he took pity on
her, and threw some juice of the disenchanting flower on her pretty eyes;
and then in a moment she saw plainly the donkey-headed clown she had been
loving, and knew how foolish she had been.
Oberon took off the ass's head from the clown, and left him to finish his
sleep with his own silly head lying on the thyme and violets.
Thus all was made plain and straight again. Oberon and Titania loved each
other more than ever. Demetrius thought of no one but Helena, and Helena
had never had any thought of anyone but Demetrius.
As for Hermia and Lysander, they were as loving a couple as you could meet
in a day's march, even through a fairy wood.
So the four mortal lovers went back to Athens and were married; and the
fairy King and Queen live happily together in that very wood at this very
day.
Ferdinand and Miranda
While yet the tempest was raging, Prospero
showed his daughter the brave ship laboring in the trough of the sea, and
told her that it was filled with living human beings like themselves. She,
in pity of their lives, prayed him who had raised this storm to quell it.
Then her father bade her to have no fear, for he intended to save every
one of them.
Then, for the first time, he told her the story of his life and hers, and
that he had caused this storm to rise in order that his enemies, Antonio
and Alonso, who were on board, might be delivered into his hands.
When he had made an end of his story he charmed her into sleep, for Ariel
was at hand, and he had work for him to do. Ariel, who longed for his
complete freedom, grumbled to be kept in drudgery, but on being
threateningly reminded of all the sufferings he had undergone when Sycorax
ruled in the land, and of the debt of gratitude he owed to the master who
had made those sufferings to end, he ceased to complain, and promised
faithfully to do whatever Prospero might command.
“Do so,” said Prospero, “and in two days I will discharge thee.”
Then he bade Ariel take the form of a water nymph and sent him in search
of the young prince. And Ariel, invisible to Ferdinand, hovered near him,
singing the while--
“Come unto these yellow sands
And then take hands:
Court'sied when you have, and kiss'd
(The wild waves whist),
Foot it featly here and there;
And, sweet sprites, the burden bear!”
And Ferdinand followed the magic singing, as the song changed to a solemn
air, and the words brought grief to his heart, and tears to his eyes, for
thus they ran--
“Full fathom five thy father lies;
Of his bones are coral made.
Those are pearls that were his eyes,
Nothing of him that doth fade,
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange.
Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell.
Hark! now I hear them,-- ding dong bell!”
And so singing, Ariel led the spell-bound prince into the presence of
Prospero and Miranda. Then, behold! all happened as Prospero desired. For
Miranda, who had never, since she could first remember, seen any human
being save her father, looked on the youthful prince with reverence in her
eyes, and love in her secret heart.
“I might call him,” she said, “a thing divine, for nothing natural I ever
saw so noble!”
And Ferdinand, beholding her beauty with wonder and delight, exclaimed--
“Most sure the goddess on whom these airs attend!”
Nor did he attempt to hide the passion which she inspired in him, for
scarcely had they exchanged half a dozen sentences, before he vowed to
make her his queen if she were willing. But Prospero, though secretly
delighted, pretended wrath.
“You come here as a spy,” he said to
Ferdinand. “I will manacle your neck and feet together, and you shall feed
on fresh water mussels, withered roots and husk, and have sea-water to
drink. Follow.”
“No,” said Ferdinand, and drew his sword. But on the instant Prospero
charmed him so that he stood there like a statue, still as stone; and
Miranda in terror prayed her father to have mercy on her lover. But he
harshly refused her, and made Ferdinand follow him to his cell. There he
set the Prince to work, making him remove thousands of heavy logs of
timber and pile them up; and Ferdinand patiently obeyed, and thought his
toil all too well repaid by the sympathy of the sweet Miranda.
She in very pity would have helped him in his hard work, but he would not
let her, yet he could not keep from her the secret of his love, and she,
hearing it, rejoiced and promised to be his wife.
Then Prospero released him from his servitude, and glad at heart, he gave
his consent to their marriage.
“Take her,” he said, “she is thine own.”
In the meantime, Antonio and Sebastian in another part of the island were
plotting the murder of Alonso, the King of Naples, for Ferdinand being
dead, as they thought, Sebastian would succeed to the throne on Alonso's
death. And they would have carried out their wicked purpose while their
victim was asleep, but that Ariel woke him in good time.
Many tricks did Ariel play them. Once he set a banquet before them, and
just as they were going to fall to, he appeared to them amid thunder and
lightning in the form of a harpy, and immediately the banquet disappeared.
Then Ariel upbraided them with their sins and vanished too.
Prospero by his enchantments drew them all to the grove without his cell,
where they waited, trembling and afraid, and now at last bitterly
repenting them of their sins.
Prospero determined to make one last use of his magic power, “And then,”
said he, “I'll break my staff and deeper than did ever plummet sound I'll
drown my book.”
So he made heavenly music to sound in the air, and appeared to them in his
proper shape as the Duke of Milan. Because they repented, he forgave them
and told them the story of his life since they had cruelly committed him
and his baby daughter to the mercy of wind and waves. Alonso, who seemed
sorriest of them all for his past crimes, lamented the loss of his heir.
But Prospero drew back a curtain and showed them Ferdinand and Miranda
playing at chess. Great was Alonso's joy to greet his loved son again, and
when he heard that the fair maid with whom Ferdinand was playing was
Prospero's daughter, and that the young folks had plighted their troth, he
said--
“Give me your hands, let grief and sorrow
still embrace his heart that doth not wish you joy.”
So all ended happily. The ship was safe in the harbor, and next day they
all set sail for Naples, where Ferdinand and Miranda were to be married.
Ariel gave them calm seas and auspicious gales; and many were the
rejoicings at the wedding.
Then Prospero, after many years of absence, went back to his own dukedom,
where he was welcomed with great joy by his faithful subjects. He
practiced the arts of magic no more, but his life was happy, and not only
because he had found his own again, but chiefly because, when his
bitterest foes who had done him deadly wrong lay at his mercy, he took no
vengeance on them, but nobly forgave them.
As for Ariel, Prospero made him free as air, so that he could wander where
he would, and sing with a light heart his sweet song--
“Where the bee sucks, there suck I:
In a cowslip's bell I lie;
There I couch when owls do cry.
On the bat's back I do fly
After summer, merrily:
Merrily, merrily, shall I live now,
Under the blossom that hangs on the bough.”
The banished Duke's daughter, Rosalind,
remained with Celia, Frederick's daughter, and the two loved each other
more than most sisters. One day there was a wrestling match at Court, and
Rosalind and Celia went to see it. Charles, a celebrated wrestler, was
there, who had killed many men in contests of this kind. Orlando, the
young man he was to wrestle with, was so slender and youthful, that
Rosalind and Celia thought he would surely be killed, as others had been;
so they spoke to him, and asked him not to attempt so dangerous an
adventure; but the only effect of their words was to make him wish more to
come off well in the encounter, so as to win praise from such sweet
ladies.
Orlando, like Rosalind's father, was being kept out of his inheritance by
his brother, and was so sad at his brother's unkindness that, until he saw
Rosalind, he did not care much whether he lived or died. But now the sight
of the fair Rosalind gave him strength and courage, so that he did
marvelously, and at last, threw Charles to such a tune, that the wrestler
had to be carried off the ground. Duke Frederick was pleased with his
courage, and asked his name.
“My name is Orlando, and I am the youngest son of Sir Rowland de Boys,”
said the young man.
Now Sir Rowland de Boys, when he was alive, had been a good friend to the
banished Duke, so that Frederick heard with regret whose son Orlando was,
and would not befriend him. But Rosalind was delighted to hear that this
handsome young stranger was the son of her father's old friend, and as
they were going away, she turned back more than once to say another kind
word to the brave young man.
“Gentleman,” she said, giving him a chain from her neck, “wear this for
me. I could give more, but that my hand lacks means.”
Rosalind and Celia, when they were alone, began to talk about the handsome
wrestler, and Rosalind confessed that she loved him at first sight.
“Come, come,” said Celia, “wrestle with thy affections.”
“Oh,” answered Rosalind, “they take the part of a better wrestler than
myself. Look, here comes the Duke.”
“With his eyes full of anger,” said Celia.
“You must leave the Court at once,” he said to Rosalind. “Why?” she asked.
“Never mind why,” answered the Duke, “you
are banished. If within ten days you are found within twenty miles of my
Court, you die.”
So Rosalind set out to seek her father, the banished Duke, in the Forest
of Arden. Celia loved her too much to let her go alone, and as it was
rather a dangerous journey, Rosalind, being the taller, dressed up as a
young countryman, and her cousin as a country girl, and Rosalind said that
she would be called Ganymede, and Celia, Aliena. They were very tired when
at last they came to the Forest of Arden, and as they were sitting on the
grass a countryman passed that way, and Ganymede asked him if he could get
them food. He did so, and told them that a shepherd's flocks and house
were to be sold. They bought these and settled down as shepherd and
shepherdess in the forest.
In the meantime, Oliver having sought to take his brother Orlando's life,
Orlando also wandered into the forest, and there met with the rightful
Duke, and being kindly received, stayed with him. Now, Orlando could think
of nothing but Rosalind, and he went about the forest carving her name on
trees, and writing love sonnets and hanging them on the bushes, and there
Rosalind and Celia found them. One day Orlando met them, but he did not
know Rosalind in her boy's clothes, though he liked the pretty shepherd
youth, because he fancied a likeness in him to her he loved.
“There is a foolish lover,” said Rosalind, “who haunts these woods and
hangs sonnets on the trees. If I could find him, I would soon cure him of
his folly.”
Orlando confessed that he was the foolish lover, and Rosalind said--“If
you will come and see me every day, I will pretend to be Rosalind, and I
will take her part, and be wayward and contrary, as is the way of women,
till I make you ashamed of your folly in loving her.”
And so every day he went to her house, and took a pleasure in saying to
her all the pretty things he would have said to Rosalind; and she had the
fine and secret joy of knowing that all his love-words came to the right
ears. Thus many days passed pleasantly away.
One morning, as Orlando was going to visit Ganymede, he saw a man asleep
on the ground, and that there was a lioness crouching near, waiting for
the man who was asleep to wake: for they say that lions will not prey on
anything that is dead or sleeping. Then Orlando looked at the man, and saw
that it was his wicked brother, Oliver, who had tried to take his life. He
fought with the lioness and killed her, and saved his brother's life.
While Orlando was fighting the lioness, Oliver woke to see his brother,
whom he had treated so badly, saving him from a wild beast at the risk of
his own life. This made him repent of his wickedness, and he begged
Orlando's pardon, and from thenceforth they were dear brothers. The
lioness had wounded Orlando's arm so much, that he could not go on to see
the shepherd, so he sent his brother to ask Ganymede to come to him.
Oliver went and told the whole story to Ganymede and Aliena, and Aliena
was so charmed with his manly way of confessing his faults, that she fell
in love with him at once. But when Ganymede heard of the danger Orlando
had been in she fainted; and when she came to herself, said truly enough,
“I should have been a woman by right.”
Oliver went back to his brother and told him all this, saying, “I love
Aliena so well that I will give up my estates to you and marry her, and
live here as a shepherd.”
“Let your wedding be to-morrow,” said Orlando, “and I will ask the Duke
and his friends.”
When Orlando told Ganymede how his
brother was to be married on the morrow, he added: “Oh, how bitter a thing
it is to look into happiness through another man's eyes.”
Then answered Rosalind, still in Ganymede's dress and speaking with his
voic--“If you do love Rosalind so near the heart, then when your brother
marries Aliena, shall you marry her.”
Now the next day the Duke and his followers, and Orlando, and Oliver, and
Aliena, were all gathered together for the wedding.
Then Ganymede came in and said to the Duke, “If I bring in your daughter
Rosalind, will you give her to Orlando here?” “That I would,” said the
Duke, “if I had all kingdoms to give with her.”
“And you say you will have her when I bring her?” she said to Orlando.
“That would I,” he answered, “were I king of all kingdoms.”
Then Rosalind and Celia went out, and Rosalind put on her pretty woman's
clothes again, and after a while came back.
She turned to her father--“I give myself to you, for I am yours.” “If
there be truth in sight,” he said, “you are my daughter.”
Then she said to Orlando, “I give myself to you, for I am yours.” “If
there be truth in sight,” he said, “you are my Rosalind.”
“I will have no father if you be not he,” she said to the Duke, and to
Orlando, “I will have no husband if you be not he.”
So Orlando and Rosalind were married, and Oliver and Celia, and they lived
happy ever after, returning with the Duke to the kingdom. For Frederick
had been shown by a holy hermit the wickedness of his ways, and so gave
back the dukedom of his brother, and himself went into a monastery to pray
for forgiveness.
The wedding was a merry one, in the mossy glades of the forest. A shepherd
and shepherdess who had been friends with Rosalind, when she was herself
disguised as a shepherd, were married on the same day, and all with such
pretty feastings and merrymakings as could be nowhere within four walls,
but only in the beautiful green wood.
Prince Florizel and Perdita
While the Queen was in prison she had a
little baby, and a friend of hers, named Paulina, had the baby dressed in
its best, and took it to show the King, thinking that the sight of his
helpless little daughter would soften his heart towards his dear Queen,
who had never done him any wrong, and who loved him a great deal more than
he deserved; but the King would not look at the baby, and ordered
Paulina's husband to take it away in a ship, and leave it in the most
desert and dreadful place he could find, which Paulina's husband, very
much against his will, was obliged to do.
Then the poor Queen was brought up to be tried for treason in preferring
Polixenes to her King; but really she had never thought of anyone except
Leontes, her husband. Leontes had sent some messengers to ask the god,
Apollo, whether he was not right in his cruel thoughts of the Queen. But
he had not patience to wait till they came back, and so it happened that
they arrived in the middle of the trial. The Oracle said--
“Hermione is innocent, Polixenes blameless, Camillo a true subject,
Leontes a jealous tyrant, and the King shall live without an heir, if that
which is lost be not found.”
Then a man came and told them that the little Prince was dead. The poor
Queen, hearing this, fell down in a fit; and then the King saw how wicked
and wrong he had been. He ordered Paulina and the ladies who were with the
Queen to take her away, and try to restore her. But Paulina came back in a
few moments, and told the King that Hermione was dead.
Now Leontes' eyes were at last opened to his
folly. His Queen was dead, and the little daughter who might have been a
comfort to him he had sent away to be the prey of wolves and kites. Life
had nothing left for him now. He gave himself up to his grief, and passed
many sad years in prayer and remorse.
The baby Princess was left on the seacoast of Bohemia, the very kingdom
where Polixenes reigned. Paulina's husband never went home to tell Leontes
where he had left the baby; for as he was going back to the ship, he met a
bear and was torn to pieces. So there was an end of him.
But the poor deserted little baby was found by a shepherd. She was richly
dressed, and had with her some jewels, and a paper was pinned to her
cloak, saying that her name was Perdita, and that she came of noble
parents.
The shepherd, being a kind-hearted man, took home the little baby to his
wife, and they brought it up as their own child. She had no more teaching
than a shepherd's child generally has, but she inherited from her royal
mother many graces and charms, so that she was quite different from the
other maidens in the village where she lived.
One day Prince Florizel, the son of the good King of Bohemia, was bunting
near the shepherd's house and saw Perdita, now grown up to a charming
woman. He made friends with the shepherd, not telling him that he was the
Prince, but saying that his name was Doricles, and that he was a private
gentleman; and then, being deeply in love with the pretty Perdita, he came
almost daily to see her.
The King could not understand what it was that took his son nearly every
day from home; so he set people to watch him, and then found out that the
heir of the King of Bohemia was in love with Perdita, the pretty shepherd
girl. Polixenes, wishing to see whether this was true, disguised himself,
and went with the faithful Camillo, in disguise too, to the old shepherd's
house. They arrived at the feast of sheep-shearing, and, though strangers,
they were made very welcome. There was dancing going on, and a peddler was
selling ribbons and laces and gloves, which the young men bought for their
sweethearts.
Florizel and Perdita, however, were taking no part in this gay scene, but
sat quietly together talking. The King noticed the charming manners and
great beauty of Perdita, never guessing that she was the daughter of his
old friend, Leontes. He said to Camillo--
“This is the prettiest low-born lass that ever ran on the green sward.
Nothing she does or seems but smacks of something greater than
herself--too noble for this place.”
And Camillo answered, “In truth she is the Queen of curds and cream.”
But when Florizel, who did not recognize his father, called upon the
strangers to witness his betrothal with the pretty shepherdess, the King
made himself known and forbade the marriage, adding that if ever she saw
Florizel again, he would kill her and her old father, the shepherd; and
with that he left them. But Camillo remained behind, for he was charmed
with Perdita, and wished to befriend her.
Camillo had long known how sorry
Leontes was for that foolish madness of his, and he longed to go back to
Sicily to see his old master. He now proposed that the young people should
go there and claim the protection of Leontes. So they went, and the
shepherd went with them, taking Perdita's jewels, her baby clothes, and
the paper he had found pinned to her cloak.
Leontes received them with great kindness. He was very polite to Prince
Florizel, but all his looks were for Perdita. He saw how much she was like
the Queen Hermione, and said again and again--
“Such a sweet creature my daughter might have been, if I had not cruelly
sent her from me.”
When the old shepherd heard that the King had lost a baby daughter, who
had been left upon the coast of Bohemia, he felt sure that Perdita, the
child he had reared, must be the King's daughter, and when he told his
tale and showed the jewels and the paper, the King perceived that Perdita
was indeed his long-lost child. He welcomed her with joy, and rewarded the
good shepherd.
Polixenes had hastened after his son to prevent his marriage with Perdita,
but when he found that she was the daughter of his old friend, he was only
too glad to give his consent.
Yet Leontes could not be happy. He remembered how his fair Queen, who
should have been at his side to share his joy in his daughter's happiness,
was dead through his unkindness, and he could say nothing for a long time
but--
“Oh, thy mother! thy mother!” and ask forgiveness of the King of Bohemia,
and then kiss his daughter again, and then the Prince Florizel, and then
thank the old shepherd for all his goodness.
Then Paulina, who had been high all
these years in the King's favor, because of her kindness to the dead Queen
Hermione, said--“I have a statue made in the likeness of the dead Queen, a
piece many years in doing, and performed by the rare Italian master,
Giulio Romano. I keep it in a private house apart, and there, ever since
you lost your Queen, I have gone twice or thrice a day. Will it please
your Majesty to go and see the statue?”
So Leontes and Polixenes, and Florizel and Perdita, with Camillo and their
attendants, went to Paulina's house where there was a heavy purple curtain
screening off an alcove; and Paulina, with her hand on the curtain, said--
“She was peerless when she was alive, and I do believe that her dead
likeness excels whatever yet you have looked upon, or that the hand of man
hath done. Therefore I keep it lonely, apart. But here it is--behold, and
say, 'tis well.”
And with that she drew back the curtain and showed them the statue. The
King gazed and gazed on the beautiful statue of his dead wife, but said
nothing.
“I like your silence,” said Paulina; “it the more shows off your wonder.
But speak, is it not like her?”
“It is almost herself,” said the King, “and yet, Paulina, Hermione was not
so much wrinkled, nothing so old as this seems.”
“Oh, not by much,” said Polixenes.
“Al,” said Paulina, “that is the cleverness of the carver, who shows her
to us as she would have been had she lived till now.”
And still Leontes looked at the statue and could not take his eyes away.
“If I had known,” said Paulina, “that this poor image would so have
stirred your grief, and love, I would not have shown it to you.”
But he only answered, “Do not draw the curtain.”
“No, you must not look any longer,” said Paulina, “or you will think it
moves.”
“Let be! let be!” said the King. “Would you not think it breathed?”
“I will draw the curtain,” said Paulina; “you will think it lives
presently.”
“Ah, sweet Paulina,” said Leontes,
“make me to think so twenty years together.”
“If you can bear it,” said Paulina, “I can make the statue move, make it
come down and take you by the hand. Only you would think it was by wicked
magic.”
“Whatever you can make her do, I am content to look on,” said the King.
And then, all folks there admiring and beholding, the statue moved from
its pedestal, and came down the steps and put its arms round the King's
neck, and he held her face and kissed her many times, for this was no
statue, but the real living Queen Hermione herself. She had lived hidden,
by Paulina's kindness, all these years, and would not discover herself to
her husband, though she knew he had repented, because she could not quite
forgive him till she knew what had become of her little baby.
Now that Perdita was found, she forgave her husband everything, and it was
like a new and beautiful marriage to them, to be together once more.
Florizel and Perdita were married and lived long and happily.
To Leontes his many years of suffering were well paid for in the moment
when, after long grief and pain, he felt the arms of his true love around
him once again.
“I love you as much as my sister and
more,” professed Regan, “since I care for nothing but my father's love.”
Lear was very much pleased with Regan's professions, and turned to his
youngest daughter, Cordelia. “Now, our joy, though last not least,” he
said, “the best part of my kingdom have I kept for you. What can you say?”
“Nothing, my lord,” answered Cordelia.
“Nothing can come of nothing. Speak again,” said the King.
And Cordelia answered, “I love your Majesty according to my duty--no more,
no less.”
And this she said, because she was disgusted with the way in which her
sisters professed love, when really they had not even a right sense of
duty to their old father.
“I am your daughter,” she went on, “and you have brought me up and loved
me, and I return you those duties back as are right and fit, obey you,
love you, and most honor you.”
Lear, who loved Cordelia best, had wished
her to make more extravagant professions of love than her sisters. “Go,”
he said, “be for ever a stranger to my heart and me.”
The Earl of Kent, one of Lear's favorite courtiers and captains, tried to
say a word for Cordelia's sake, but Lear would not listen. He divided the
kingdom between Goneril and Regan, and told them that he should only keep
a hundred knights at arms, and would live with his daughters by turns.
When the Duke of Burgundy knew that Cordelia would have no share of the
kingdom, he gave up his courtship of her. But the King of France was
wiser, and said, “Thy dowerless daughter, King, is Queen of us--of ours,
and our fair France.”
“Take her, take her,” said the King; “for I will never see that face of
hers again.”
So Cordelia became Queen of France, and the Earl of Kent, for having
ventured to take her part, was banished from the kingdom. The King now
went to stay with his daughter Goneril, who had got everything from her
father that he had to give, and now began to grudge even the hundred
knights that he had reserved for himself. She was harsh and undutiful to
him, and her servants either refused to obey his orders or pretended that
they did not hear them.
Now the Earl of Kent, when he was banished, made as though he would go
into another country, but instead he came back in the disguise of a
servingman and took service with the King. The King had now two
friends--the Earl of Kent, whom he only knew as his servant, and his Fool,
who was faithful to him. Goneril told her father plainly that his knights
only served to fill her Court with riot and feasting; and so she begged
him only to keep a few old men about him such as himself.
“My train are men who know all parts of duty,” said Lear. “Goneril, I will
not trouble you further--yet I have left another daughter.”
And his horses being saddled, he set out with his followers for the castle
of Regan. But she, who had formerly outdone her sister in professions of
attachment to the King, now seemed to outdo her in undutiful conduct,
saying that fifty knights were too many to wait on him, and Goneril (who
had hurried thither to prevent Regan showing any kindness to the old King)
said five were too many, since her servants could wait on him.
Then when Lear saw that what they really wanted was to drive him away, he
left them. It was a wild and stormy night, and he wandered about the heath
half mad with misery, and with no companion but the poor Fool. But
presently his servant, the good Earl of Kent, met him, and at last
persuaded him to lie down in a wretched little hovel. At daybreak the Earl
of Kent removed his royal master to Dover, and hurried to the Court of
France to tell Cordelia what had happened.
Cordelia's husband gave her an army and with it she landed at Dover. Here
she found poor King Lear, wandering about the fields, wearing a crown of
nettles and weeds. They brought him back and fed and clothed him, and
Cordelia came to him and kissed him.
“You must bear with me,” said Lear; “forget and forgive. I am old and
foolish.”
And now he knew at last which of his
children it was that had loved him best, and who was worthy of his love.
Goneril and Regan joined their armies to fight Cordelia's army, and were
successful; and Cordelia and her father were thrown into prison. Then
Goneril's husband, the Duke of Albany, who was a good man, and had not
known how wicked his wife was, heard the truth of the whole story; and
when Goneril found that her husband knew her for the wicked woman she was,
she killed herself, having a little time before given a deadly poison to
her sister, Regan, out of a spirit of jealousy.
But they had arranged that Cordelia should be hanged in prison, and though
the Duke of Albany sent messengers at once, it was too late. The old King
came staggering into the tent of the Duke of Albany, carrying the body of
his dear daughter Cordelia, in his arms.
And soon after, with words of love for her upon his lips, he fell with her
still in his arms, and died.
The Duke longed for someone to whom he
could tell his sorrow, and repeat over and over again the story of his
love. And chance brought him such a companion. For about this time a
goodly ship was wrecked on the Illyrian coast, and among those who reached
land in safety were the captain and a fair young maid, named Viola. But
she was little grateful for being rescued from the perils of the sea,
since she feared that her twin brother was drowned, Sebastian, as dear to
her as the heart in her bosom, and so like her that, but for the
difference in their manner of dress, one could hardly be told from the
other. The captain, for her comfort, told her that he had seen her brother
bind himself “to a strong mast that lived upon the sea,” and that thus
there was hope that he might be saved.
Viola now asked in whose country she was, and learning that the young Duke
Orsino ruled there, and was as noble in his nature as in his name, she
decided to disguise herself in male attire, and seek for employment with
him as a page.
In this she succeeded, and now from day to day she had to listen to the
story of Orsino's love. At first she sympathized very truly with him, but
soon her sympathy grew to love. At last it occurred to Orsino that his
hopeless love-suit might prosper better if he sent this pretty lad to woo
Olivia for him. Viola unwillingly went on this errand, but when she came
to the house, Malvolio, Olivia's steward, a vain, officious man, sick, as
his mistress told him, of self-love, forbade the messenger admittance.
Viola, however (who was now called Cesario), refused to take any denial,
and vowed to have speech with the Countess. Olivia, hearing how her
instructions were defied and curious to see this daring youth, said,
“We'll once more hear Orsino's embassy.”
When Viola was admitted to her presence and the servants had been sent
away, she listened patiently to the reproaches which this bold messenger
from the Duke poured upon her, and listening she fell in love with the
supposed Cesario; and when Cesario had gone, Olivia longed to send some
love-token after him. So, calling Malvolio, she bade him follow the boy.
“He left this ring behind him,” she
said, taking one from her finger. “Tell him I will none of it.”
Malvolio did as he was bid, and then Viola, who of course knew perfectly
well that she had left no ring behind her, saw with a woman's quickness
that Olivia loved her. Then she went back to the Duke, very sad at heart
for her lover, and for Olivia, and for herself.
It was but cold comfort she could give Orsino, who now sought to ease the
pangs of despised love by listening to sweet music, while Cesario stood by
his side.
“Ah,” said the Duke to his page that night, “you too have been in love.”
“A little,” answered Viola.
“What kind of woman is it?” he asked.
“Of your complexion,” she answered.
“What years, i' faith?” was his next question.
To this came the pretty answer, “About your
years, my lord.”
“Too old, by Heaven!” cried the Duke. “Let still the woman take an elder
than herself.”
And Viola very meekly said, “I think it well, my lord.”
By and by Orsino begged Cesario once more to visit Olivia and to plead his
love-suit. But she, thinking to dissuade him, said--
“If some lady loved you as you love Olivia?”
“Ah! that cannot be,” said the Duke.
“But I know,” Viola went on, “what love woman may have for a man. My
father had a daughter loved a man, as it might be,” she added blushing,
“perhaps, were I a woman, I should love your lordship.”
“And what is her history?” he asked.
“A blank, my lord,” Viola answered. “She never told her love, but let
concealment like a worm in the bud feed on her damask cheek: she pined in
thought, and with a green and yellow melancholy she sat, like Patience on
a monument, smiling at grief. Was not this love indeed?”
“But died thy sister of her love, my boy?” the Duke asked; and Viola, who
had all the time been telling her own love for him in this pretty fashion,
said--
“I am all the daughters my father has and all the brothers-- Sir, shall I
go to the lady?”
“To her in haste,” said the Duke, at once forgetting all about the story,
“and give her this jewel.”
So Viola went, and this time poor Olivia was unable to hide her love, and
openly confessed it with such passionate truth, that Viola left her
hastily, saying--
“Nevermore will I deplore my master's tears to you.”
But in vowing this, Viola did not know the tender pity she would feel for
other's suffering. So when Olivia, in the violence of her love, sent a
messenger, praying Cesario to visit her once more, Cesario had no heart to
refuse the request.
But the favors which Olivia bestowed upon this mere page aroused the
jealousy of Sir Andrew Aguecheek, a foolish, rejected lover of hers, who
at that time was staying at her house with her merry old uncle Sir Toby.
This same Sir Toby dearly loved a practical joke, and knowing Sir Andrew
to be an arrant coward, he thought that if he could bring off a duel
between him and Cesario, there would be rare sport indeed. So he induced
Sir Andrew to send a challenge, which he himself took to Cesario. The poor
page, in great terror, said--
“I will return again to the house, I am no fighter.”
“Back you shall not to the house,” said Sir Toby, “unless you fight me
first.”
And as he looked a very fierce old gentleman, Viola thought it best to
await Sir Andrew's coming; and when he at last made his appearance, in a
great fright, if the truth had been known, she tremblingly drew her sword,
and Sir Andrew in like fear followed her example. Happily for them both,
at this moment some officers of the Court came on the scene, and stopped
the intended duel. Viola gladly made off with what speed she might, while
Sir Toby called after her--
“A very paltry boy, and more a coward than a hare!”
Now, while these things were happening, Sebastian had escaped all the
dangers of the deep, and had landed safely in Illyria, where he determined
to make his way to the Duke's Court. On his way thither he passed Olivia's
house just as Viola had left it in such a hurry, and whom should he meet
but Sir Andrew and Sir Toby. Sir Andrew, mistaking Sebastian for the
cowardly Cesario, took his courage in both hands, and walking up to him
struck him, saying, “There's for you.”
“Why, there's for you; and there, and there!” said Sebastian, bitting back
a great deal harder, and again and again, till Sir Toby came to the rescue
of his friend. Sebastian, however, tore himself free from Sir Toby's
clutches, and drawing his sword would have fought them both, but that
Olivia herself, having heard of the quarrel, came running in, and with
many reproaches sent Sir Toby and his friend away. Then turning to
Sebastian, whom she too thought to be Cesario, she besought him with many
a pretty speech to come into the house with her.
Sebastian, half dazed and all delighted with her beauty and grace, readily
consented, and that very day, so great was Olivia's baste, they were
married before she had discovered that he was not Cesario, or Sebastian
was quite certain whether or not he was in a dream.
Meanwhile Orsino, hearing how ill Cesario sped with Olivia, visited her
himself, taking Cesario with him. Olivia met them both before her door,
and seeing, as she thought, her husband there, reproached him for leaving
her, while to the Duke she said that his suit was as fat and wholesome to
her as howling after music.
“Still so cruel?” said Orsino.
“Still so constant,” she answered.
Then Orsino's anger growing to cruelty, he vowed that, to be revenged on
her, he would kill Cesario, whom he knew she loved. “Come, boy,” he said
to the page.
And Viola, following him as he moved away, said, “I, to do you rest, a
thousand deaths would die.”
A great fear took hold on Olivia, and she cried aloud, “Cesario, husband,
stay!”
“Her husband?” asked the Duke angrily.
“No, my lord, not I,” said Viola.
“Call forth the holy father,” cried Olivia.
And the priest who had married Sebastian and Olivia, coming in, declared
Cesario to be the bridegroom.
“O thou dissembling cub!” the Duke exclaimed. “Farewell, and take her, but
go where thou and I henceforth may never meet.”
At this moment Sir Andrew came up with bleeding crown, complaining that
Cesario had broken his head, and Sir Toby's as well.
“I never hurt you,” said Viola, very positively; “you drew your sword on
me, but I bespoke you fair, and hurt you not.”
Yet, for all her protesting, no one there believed her; but all their
thoughts were on a sudden changed to wonder, when Sebastian came in.
“I am sorry, madam,” he said to his wife, “I have hurt your kinsman.
Pardon me, sweet, even for the vows we made each other so late ago.”
“One face, one voice, one habit, and two persons!” cried the Duke, looking
first at Viola, and then at Sebastian.
“An apple cleft in two,” said one who knew Sebastian, “is not more twin
than these two creatures. Which is Sebastian?”
“I never had a brother,” said Sebastian. “I had a sister, whom the blind
waves and surges have devoured.” “Were you a woman,” he said to Viola, “I
should let my tears fall upon your cheek, and say, 'Thrice welcome,
drowned Viola!'”
Then Viola, rejoicing to see her dear brother alive, confessed that she
was indeed his sister, Viola. As she spoke, Orsino felt the pity that is
akin to love.
“Boy,” he said, “thou hast said to me a thousand times thou never shouldst
love woman like to me.”
“And all those sayings will I overswear,” Viola replied, “and all those
swearings keep true.”
“Give me thy hand,” Orsino cried in gladness. “Thou shalt be my wife, and
my fancy's queen.”
Thus was the gentle Viola made happy, while Olivia found in Sebastian a
constant lover, and a good husband, and he in her a true and loving wife.
“Give me your candid opinion of Hero,”
Claudio, asked, and Borachio settled himself for comfortable listening.
“Too short and brown for praise,” was Benedick's reply; “but alter her
color or height, and you spoil her.”
“In my eyes she is the sweetest of women,” said Claudio.
“Not in mine,” retorted Benedick, “and I have no need for glasses. She is
like the last day of December compared with the first of May if you set
her beside her cousin. Unfortunately, the Lady Beatrice is a fury.”
Beatrice was Leonato's niece. She amused herself by saying witty and
severe things about Benedick, who called her Dear Lady Disdain. She was
wont to say that she was born under a dancing star, and could not
therefore be dull.
Claudio and Benedick were still talking when Don Pedro came up and said
good-humoredly, “Well, gentlemen, what's the secret?”
“I am longing,” answered Benedick, “for your Grace to command me to tell.”
“I charge you, then, on your allegiance to tell me,” said Don Pedro,
falling in with his humor.
“I can be as dumb as a mute,” apologized Benedick to Claudio, “but his
Grace commands my speech.” To Don Pedro he said, “Claudio is in love with
Hero, Leonato's short daughter.”
Don Pedro was pleased, for he admired Hero and was fond of Claudio. When
Benedick had departed, he said to Claudio, “Be steadfast in your love for
Hero, and I will help you to win her. To-night her father gives a
masquerade, and I will pretend I am Claudio, and tell her how Claudio
loves her, and if she be pleased, I will go to her father and ask his
consent to your union.”
Most men like to do their own wooing, but if you fall in love with a
Governor's only daughter, you are fortunate if you can trust a prince to
plead for you.
Claudio then was fortunate, but he was unfortunate as well, for he had an
enemy who was outwardly a friend. This enemy was Don Pedro's stepbrother
Don John, who was jealous of Claudio because Don Pedro preferred him to
Don John.
It was to Don John that Borachio came with the interesting conversation
which he had overheard.
“I shall have some fun at that masquerade myself,” said Don John when
Borachio ceased speaking.
On the night of the masquerade, Don Pedro, masked and pretending he was
Claudio, asked Hero if he might walk with her.
They moved away together, and Don John went up to Claudio and said,
“Signor Benedick, I believe?” “The same,” fibbed Claudio.
“I should be much obliged then,” said Don John, “if you would use your
influence with my brother to cure him of his love for Hero. She is beneath
him in rank.”
“How do you know he loves her?” inquired Claudio.
“I heard him swear his affection,” was
the reply, and Borachio chimed in with, “So did I too.”
Claudio was then left to himself, and his thought was that his Prince had
betrayed him. “Farewell, Hero,” he muttered; “I was a fool to trust to an
agent.”
Meanwhile Beatrice and Benedick (who was masked) were having a brisk
exchange of opinions.
“Did Benedick ever make you laugh?” asked she.
“Who is Benedick?” he inquired.
“A Prince's jester,” replied Beatrice, and she spoke so sharply that “I
would not marry her,” he declared afterwards, “if her estate were the
Garden of Eden.”
But the principal speaker at the masquerade was neither Beatrice nor
Benedick. It was Don Pedro, who carried out his plan to the letter, and
brought the light back to Claudio's face in a twinkling, by appearing
before him with Leonato and Hero, and saying, “Claudio, when would you
like to go to church?”
“To-morrow,” was the prompt answer. “Time goes on crutches till I marry
Hero.”
“Give her a week, my dear son,” said Leonato, and Claudio's heart thumped
with joy.
“And now,” said the amiable Don Pedro, “we must find a wife for Signor
Benedick. It is a task for Hercules.”
“I will help you,” said Leonato, “if I have to sit up ten nights.”
Then Hero spoke. “I will do what I can, my lord, to find a good husband
for Beatrice.”
Thus, with happy laughter, ended the masquerade which had given Claudio a
lesson for nothing.
Borachio cheered up Don John by laying a plan before him with which he was
confident he could persuade both Claudio and Don Pedro that Hero was a
fickle girl who had two strings to her bow. Don John agreed to this plan
of hate.
Don Pedro, on the other hand, had devised a cunning plan of love. “If,” he
said to Leonato, “we pretend, when Beatrice is near enough to overhear us,
that Benedick is pining for her love, she will pity him, see his good
qualities, and love him. And if, when Benedick thinks we don't know he is
listening, we say how sad it is that the beautiful Beatrice should be in
love with a heartless scoffer like Benedick, he will certainly be on his
knees before her in a week or less.”
So one day, when Benedick was reading in a summer-house, Claudio sat down
outside it with Leonato, and said, “Your daughter told me something about
a letter she wrote.”
“Letter!” exclaimed Leonato. “She will get up twenty times in the night
and write goodness knows what. But once Hero peeped, and saw the words
'Benedick and Beatrice' on the sheet, and then Beatrice tore it up.”
“Hero told me,” said Claudio, “that she cried, 'O sweet Benedick!'”
Benedick was touched to the core by this improbable story, which he was
vain enough to believe. “She is fair and good,” he said to himself. “I
must not seem proud. I feel that I love her. People will laugh, of course;
but their paper bullets will do me no harm.”
At this moment Beatrice came to the summerhouse, and said, “Against my
will, I have come to tell you that dinner is ready.”
“Fair Beatrice, I thank you,” said Benedick.
“I took no more pains to come than you take pains to thank me,” was the
rejoinder, intended to freeze him.
But it did not freeze him. It warmed him. The meaning he squeezed out of
her rude speech was that she was delighted to come to him.
Hero, who had undertaken the task of melting the heart of Beatrice, took
no trouble to seek an occasion. She simply said to her maid Margaret one
day, “Run into the parlor and whisper to Beatrice that Ursula and I are
talking about her in the orchard.”
Having said this, she felt as sure that
Beatrice would overhear what was meant for her ears as if she had made an
appointment with her cousin.
In the orchard was a bower, screened from the sun by honeysuckles, and
Beatrice entered it a few minutes after Margaret had gone on her errand.
“But are you sure,” asked Ursula, who was one of Hero's attendants, “that
Benedick loves Beatrice so devotedly?”
“So say the Prince and my betrothed,” replied Hero, “and they wished me to
tell her, but I said, 'No! Let Benedick get over it.'”
“Why did you say that?”
“Because Beatrice is unbearably proud. Her eyes sparkle with disdain and
scorn. She is too conceited to love. I should not like to see her making
game of poor Benedick's love. I would rather see Benedick waste away like
a covered fire.”
“I don't agree with you,” said Ursula. “I think your cousin is too
clear-sighted not to see the merits of Benedick.” “He is the one man in
Italy, except Claudio,” said Hero.
The talkers then left the orchard, and Beatrice, excited and tender,
stepped out of the summer-house, saying to herself, “Poor dear Benedick,
be true to me, and your love shall tame this wild heart of mine.”
We now return to the plan of hate.
The night before the day fixed for Claudio's wedding, Don John entered a
room in which Don Pedro and Claudio were conversing, and asked Claudio if
he intended to be married to-morrow.
“You know he does!” said Don Pedro.
“He may know differently,” said Don John, “when he has seen what I will
show him if he will follow me.”
They followed him into the garden; and they saw a lady leaning out of
Hero's window talking love to Borachio.
Claudio thought the lady was Hero, and said, “I will shame her for it
to-morrow!” Don Pedro thought she was Hero, too; but she was not Hero; she
was Margaret.
Don John chuckled noiselessly when Claudio and Don Pedro quitted the
garden; he gave Borachio a purse containing a thousand ducats.
The money made Borachio feel very gay, and when he was walking in the
street with his friend Conrade, he boasted of his wealth and the giver,
and told what he had done.
A watchman overheard them, and thought that a man who had been paid a
thousand ducats for villainy was worth taking in charge. He therefore
arrested Borachio and Conrade, who spent the rest of the night in prison.
Before noon of the next day half the aristocrats in Messina were at
church. Hero thought it was her wedding day, and she was there in her
wedding dress, no cloud on her pretty face or in her frank and shining
eyes.
The priest was Friar Francis.
Turning to Claudio, he said, “You come hither, my lord, to marry this
lady?” “No!” contradicted Claudio.
Leonato thought he was quibbling over grammar. “You should have said,
Friar,” said he, “'You come to be married to her.'”
Friar Francis turned to Hero. “Lady,” he said, “you come hither to be
married to this Count?” “I do,” replied Hero.
“If either of you know any impediment to this marriage, I charge you to
utter it,” said the Friar.
“Do you know of any, Hero?” asked Claudio. “None,” said she.
“Know you of any, Count?” demanded the Friar. “I dare reply for him,
'None,'” said Leonato.
Claudio exclaimed bitterly, “O! what will not men dare say! Father,” he
continued, “will you give me your daughter?” “As freely,” replied Leonato,
“as God gave her to me.”
“And what can I give you,” asked Claudio, “which is worthy of this gift?”
“Nothing,” said Don Pedro, “unless you give the gift back to the giver.”
“Sweet Prince, you teach me,” said Claudio. “There, Leonato, take her
back.”
These brutal words were followed by others which flew from Claudio, Don
Pedro and Don John.
The church seemed no longer sacred. Hero took her own part as long as she
could, then she swooned. All her persecutors left the church, except her
father, who was befooled by the accusations against her, and cried, “Hence
from her! Let her die!”
But Friar Francis saw Hero blameless with his clear eyes that probed the
soul. “She is innocent,” he said; “a thousand signs have told me so.”
Hero revived under his kind gaze. Her father, flurried and angry, knew not
what to think, and the Friar said, “They have left her as one dead with
shame. Let us pretend that she is dead until the truth is declared, and
slander turns to remorse.”
“The Friar advises well,” said Benedick. Then Hero was led away into a
retreat, and Beatrice and Benedick remained alone in the church.
Benedick knew she had been weeping bitterly and long. “Surely I do believe
your fair cousin is wronged,” he said. She still wept.
“Is it not strange,” asked Benedick, gently, “that I love nothing in the
world as well as you?”
“It were as possible for me to say I loved nothing as well as you,” said
Beatrice, “but I do not say it. I am sorry for my cousin.”
“Tell me what to do for her,” said Benedick. “Kill Claudio.”
“Ha! not for the wide world,” said Benedick. “Your refusal kills me,” said
Beatrice. “Farewell.”
“Enough! I will challenge him,” cried Benedick.
During this scene Borachio and Conrade were in prison. There they were
examined by a constable called Dogberry.
The watchman gave evidence to the effect that Borachio had said that he
had received a thousand ducats for conspiring against Hero.
Leonato was not present at this examination, but he was nevertheless now
thoroughly convinced Of Hero's innocence. He played the part of bereaved
father very well, and when Don Pedro and Claudio called on him in a
friendly way, he said to the Italian, “You have slandered my child to
death, and I challenge you to combat.”
“I cannot fight an old man,” said Claudio.
“You could kill a girl,” sneered Leonato, and Claudio crimsoned.
Hot words grew from hot words, and both Don Pedro and Claudio were feeling
scorched when Leonato left the room and Benedick entered.
“The old man,” said Claudio, “was like to have snapped my nose off.”
“You are a villain!” said Benedick, shortly. “Fight me when and with what
weapon you please, or I call you a coward.”
Claudio was astounded, but said, “I'll meet you. Nobody shall say I can't
carve a calf's head.”
Benedick smiled, and as it was time for Don Pedro to receive officials,
the Prince sat down in a chair of state and prepared his mind for justice.
The door soon opened to admit Dogberry and his prisoners.
“What offence,” said Don Pedro, “are these men charged with?”
Borachio thought the moment a happy
one for making a clean breast of it. He laid the whole blame on Don John,
who had disappeared. “The lady Hero being dead,” he said, “I desire
nothing but the reward of a murderer.”
Claudio heard with anguish and deep repentance.
Upon the re-entrance of Leonato be said to him, “This slave makes clear
your daughter's innocence. Choose your revenge.
“Leonato,” said Don Pedro, humbly, “I am ready for any penance you may
impose.”
“I ask you both, then,” said Leonato, “to proclaim my daughter's
innocence, and to honor her tomb by singing her praise before it. As for
you, Claudio, I have this to say: my brother has a daughter so like Hero
that she might be a copy of her. Marry her, and my vengeful feelings die.”
“Noble sir,” said Claudio, “I am yours.” Claudio then went to his room and
composed a solemn song. Going to the church with Don Pedro and his
attendants, he sang it before the monument of Leonato's family. When he
had ended he said, “Good night, Hero. Yearly will I do this.”
He then gravely, as became a gentleman whose heart was Hero's, made ready
to marry a girl whom he did not love. He was told to meet her in Leonato's
house, and was faithful to his appointment.
He was shown into a room where Antonio (Leonato's brother) and several
masked ladies entered after him. Friar Francis, Leonato, and Benedick were
present.
Antonio led one of the ladies towards Claudio.
“Sweet,” said the young man, “let me see your face.”
“Swear first to marry her,” said Leonato.
“Give me your hand,” said Claudio to the lady; “before this holy friar I
swear to marry you if you will be my wife.”
“Alive I was your wife,” said the lady, as she drew off her mask.
“Another Hero!” exclaimed Claudio.
“Hero died,” explained Leonato, “only while slander lived.”
The Friar was then going to marry the reconciled pair, but Benedick
interrupted him with, “Softly, Friar; which of these ladies is Beatrice?”
Hereat Beatrice unmasked, and Benedick said, “You love me, don't you?”
“Only moderately,” was the reply. “Do you love me?”
“Moderately,” answered Benedick.
“I was told you were well-nigh dead for me,” remarked Beatrice.
“Of you I was told the same,” said Benedick.
“Here's your own hand in evidence of your love,” said Claudio, producing a
feeble sonnet which Benedick had written to his sweetheart. “And here,”
said Hero, “is a tribute to Benedick, which I picked out of the pocket of
Beatrice.”
“A miracle!” exclaimed Benedick. “Our hands are against our hearts! Come,
I will marry you, Beatrice.”
“You shall be my husband to save your life,” was the rejoinder.
Benedick kissed her on the mouth; and the Friar married them after he had
married Claudio and Hero.
“How is Benedick the married man?” asked Don Pedro.
“Too happy to be made unhappy,” replied Benedick. “Crack what jokes you
will. As for you, Claudio, I had hoped to run you through the body, but as
you are now my kinsman, live whole and love my cousin.”
“My cudgel was in love with you, Benedick, until to-day,” said Claudio;
but, “Come, come, let's dance,” said Benedick.
And dance they did. Not even the news of the capture of Don John was able
to stop the flying feet of the happy lovers, for revenge is not sweet
against an evil man who has failed to do harm.
Romeo and
Juliet
Old Capulet welcomed him and his two
friends very kindly--and young Romeo moved about among the crowd of
courtly folk dressed in their velvets and satins, the men with jeweled
sword hilts and collars, and the ladies with brilliant gems on breast and
arms, and stones of price set in their bright girdles. Romeo was in his
best too, and though he wore a black mask over his eyes and nose, everyone
could see by his mouth and his hair, and the way he held his head, that he
was twelve times handsomer than anyone else in the room.
Presently amid the dancers he saw a lady so beautiful and so lovable that
from that moment he never again gave one thought to that Rosaline whom he
had thought he loved. And he looked at this other fair lady, as she moved
in the dance in her white satin and pearls, and all the world seemed vain
and worthless to him compared with her. And he was saying this, or
something like it, when Tybalt, Lady Capulet's nephew, hearing his voice,
knew him to be Romeo. Tybalt, being very angry, went at once to his uncle,
and told him how a Montagu had come uninvited to the feast; but old
Capulet was too fine a gentleman to be discourteous to any man under his
own roof, and he bade Tybalt be quiet. But this young man only waited for
a chance to quarrel with Romeo.
In the meantime Romeo made his way to the fair lady, and told her in sweet
words that he loved her, and kissed her. Just then her mother sent for
her, and then Romeo found out that the lady on whom he had set his heart's
hopes was Juliet, the daughter of Lord Capulet, his sworn foe. So he went
away, sorrowing indeed, but loving her none the less.
Then Juliet said to her nurse:
“Who is that gentleman that would not dance?”
“His name is Romeo, and a Montagu, the only son of your great enemy,”
answered the nurse.
Then Juliet went to her room, and looked out of her window, over the
beautiful green-grey garden, where the moon was shining. And Romeo was
hidden in that garden among the trees--because he could not bear to go
right away without trying to see her again. So she--not knowing him to be
there--spoke her secret thought aloud, and told the quiet garden how she
loved Romeo.
And Romeo heard and was glad beyond measure. Hidden below, he looked up
and saw her fair face in the moonlight, framed in the blossoming creepers
that grew round her window, and as he looked and listened, he felt as
though he had been carried away in a dream, and set down by some magician
in that beautiful and enchanted garden.
“Ah--why are you called Romeo?” said Juliet. “Since I love you, what does
it matter what you are called?”
“Call me but love, and I'll be new baptized--henceforth I never will be
Romeo,” he cried, stepping into the full white moonlight from the shade of
the cypresses and oleanders that had hidden him.
She was frightened at first, but when she saw that it was Romeo himself,
and no stranger, she too was glad, and, he standing in the garden below
and she leaning from the window, they spoke long together, each one trying
to find the sweetest words in the world, to make that pleasant talk that
lovers use. And the tale of all they said, and the sweet music their
voices made together, is all set down in a golden book, where you children
may read it for yourselves some day.
And the time passed so quickly, as it does for folk who love each other
and are together, that when the time came to part, it seemed as though
they had met but that moment-- and indeed they hardly knew how to part.
“I will send to you to-morrow,” said Juliet.
And so at last, with lingering and longing, they said good-bye.
Juliet went into her room, and a dark curtain bid her bright window. Romeo
went away through the still and dewy garden like a man in a dream.
The next morning, very early, Romeo went to Friar Laurence, a priest, and,
telling him all the story, begged him to marry him to Juliet without
delay. And this, after some talk, the priest consented to do.
So when Juliet sent her old nurse to Romeo that day to know what he
purposed to do, the old woman took back a message that all was well, and
all things ready for the marriage of Juliet and Romeo on the next morning.
The young lovers were afraid to ask
their parents' consent to their marriage, as young people should do,
because of this foolish old quarrel between the Capulets and the
Montagues.
And Friar Laurence was willing to help the young lovers secretly, because
he thought that when they were once married their parents might soon be
told, and that the match might put a happy end to the old quarrel.
So the next morning early, Romeo and Juliet were married at Friar
Laurence's cell, and parted with tears and kisses. And Romeo promised to
come into the garden that evening, and the nurse got ready a rope-ladder
to let down from the window, so that Romeo could climb up and talk to his
dear wife quietly and alone.
But that very day a dreadful thing happened.
Tybalt, the young man who had been so vexed at Romeo's going to the
Capulet's feast, met him and his two friends, Mercutio and Benvolio, in
the street, called Romeo a villain, and asked him to fight. Romeo had no
wish to fight with Juliet's cousin, but Mercutio drew his sword, and he
and Tybalt fought. And Mercutio was killed. When Romeo saw that this
friend was dead, he forgot everything except anger at the man who had
killed him, and he and Tybalt fought till Tybalt fell dead.
So, on the very day of his wedding, Romeo killed his dear Juliet's cousin,
and was sentenced to be banished. Poor Juliet and her young husband met
that night indeed; he climbed the rope-ladder among the flowers, and found
her window, but their meeting was a sad one, and they parted with bitter
tears and hearts heavy, because they could not know when they should meet
again.
Now Juliet's father, who, of course, had no idea that she was married,
wished her to wed a gentleman named Paris, and was so angry when she
refused, that she hurried away to ask Friar Laurence what she should do.
He advised her to pretend to consent, and then he said:
“I will give you a draught that will make you seem to be dead for two
days, and then when they take you to church it will be to bury you, and
not to marry you. They will put you in the vault thinking you are dead,
and before you wake up Romeo and I will be there to take care of you. Will
you do this, or are you afraid?”
“I will do it; talk not to me of fear!” said Juliet. And she went home and
told her father she would marry Paris. If she had spoken out and told her
father the truth . . . well, then this would have been a different story.
Lord Capulet was very much pleased to get his own way, and set about
inviting his friends and getting the wedding feast ready. Everyone stayed
up all night, for there was a great deal to do, and very little time to do
it in. Lord Capulet was anxious to get Juliet married because he saw she
was very unhappy. Of course she was really fretting about her husband
Romeo, but her father thought she was grieving for the death of her cousin
Tybalt, and he thought marriage would give her something else to think
about.
Early in the morning the nurse came to call Juliet, and to dress her for
her wedding; but she would not wake, and at last the nurse cried out
suddenly--
“Alas! alas! help! help! my lady's dead! Oh, well-a-day that ever I was
born!”
Lady Capulet came running in, and then Lord Capulet, and Lord Paris, the
bridegroom. There lay Juliet cold and white and lifeless, and all their
weeping could not wake her. So it was a burying that day instead of a
marrying. Meantime Friar Laurence had sent a messenger to Mantua with a
letter to Romeo telling him of all these things; and all would have been
well, only the messenger was delayed, and could not go.
But ill news travels fast. Romeo's servant
who knew the secret of the marriage, but not of Juliet's pretended death,
heard of her funeral, and hurried to Mantua to tell Romeo how his young
wife was dead and lying in the grave.
“Is it so?” cried Romeo, heart-broken. “Then I will lie by Juliet's side
to-night.”
And he bought himself a poison, and went straight back to Verona. He
hastened to the tomb where Juliet was lying. It was not a grave, but a
vault. He broke open the door, and was just going down the stone steps
that led to the vault where all the dead Capulets lay, when he heard a
voice behind him calling on him to stop.
It was the Count Paris, who was to have married Juliet that very day.
“How dare you come here and disturb the dead bodies of the Capulets, you
vile Montagu?” cried Paris.
Poor Romeo, half mad with sorrow, yet tried to answer gently.
“You were told,” said Paris, “that if you returned to Verona you must
die.”
“I must indeed,” said Romeo. “I came here for nothing else. Good, gentle
youth--leave me! Oh, go--before I do you any harm! I love you better than
myself--go--leave me here--”
Then Paris said, “I defy you, and I arrest
you as a felon,” and Romeo, in his anger and despair, drew his sword. They
fought, and Paris was killed.
As Romeo's sword pierced him, Paris cried--
“Oh, I am slain! If thou be merciful, open the tomb, and lay me with
Juliet!”
And Romeo said, “In faith I will.”
And he carried the dead man into the tomb and laid him by the dear
Juliet's side. Then he kneeled by Juliet and spoke to her, and held her in
his arms, and kissed her cold lips, believing that she was dead, while all
the while she was coming nearer and nearer to the time of her awakening.
Then he drank the poison, and died beside his sweetheart and wife.
Now came Friar Laurence when it was too late, and saw all that had
happened--and then poor Juliet woke out of her sleep to find her husband
and her friend both dead beside her.
The noise of the fight had brought other folks to the place too, and Friar
Laurence, hearing them, ran away, and Juliet was left alone. She saw the
cup that had held the poison, and knew how all had happened, and since no
poison was left for her, she drew her Romeo's dagger and thrust it through
her heart--and so, falling with her head on her Romeo's breast, she died.
And here ends the story of these faithful and most unhappy lovers.
* * * * * * *
And when the old folks knew from Friar Laurence of all that had befallen,
they sorrowed exceedingly, and now, seeing all the mischief their wicked
quarrel had wrought, they repented them of it, and over the bodies of
their dead children they clasped hands at last, in friendship and
forgiveness.
Thus Pericles became the husband
of the fair lady for whose sake he had striven with the knights who came
in all their bravery to joust and tourney for her love.
Meanwhile the wicked King Antiochus had died, and the people in Tyre,
hearing no news of their King, urged Lord Helicanus to ascend the vacant
throne. But they could only get him to promise that he would become their
King, if at the end of a year Pericles did not come back. Moreover, he
sent forth messengers far and wide in search of the missing Pericles.
Some of these made their way to Pentapolis, and finding their King there,
told him how discontented his people were at his long absence, and that,
Antiochus being dead, there was nothing now to hinder him from returning
to his kingdom. Then Pericles told his wife and father-in-law who he
really was, and they and all the subjects of Simonides greatly rejoiced to
know that the gallant husband of Thaisa was a King in his own right. So
Pericles set sail with his dear wife for his native land. But once more
the sea was cruel to him, for again a dreadful storm broke out, and while
it was at its height, a servant came to tell him that a little daughter
was born to him. This news would have made his heart glad indeed, but that
the servant went on to add that his wife--his dear, dear Thaisa--was dead.
While he was praying the gods to be good to his little baby girl, the
sailors came to him, declaring that the dead Queen must be thrown
overboard, for they believed that the storm would never cease so long as a
dead body remained in the vessel. So Thaisa was laid in a big chest with
spices and jewels, and a scroll on which the sorrowful King wrote these
lines:
“Here I give to understand
(If e'er this coffin drive a-land),
I, King Pericles, have lost
This Queen worth all our mundane cost.
Who finds her, give her burying;
She was the daughter of a King;
Besides this treasure for a fee,
The gods requite his charity!”
Then the chest was cast into the sea, and the waves taking it, by
and by washed it ashore at Ephesus, where it was found by the servants of
a lord named Cerimon. He at once ordered it to be opened, and when he saw
how lovely Thaisa looked, he doubted if she were dead, and took immediate
steps to restore her. Then a great wonder happened, for she, who had been
thrown into the sea as dead, came back to life. But feeling sure that she
would never see her husband again, Thaisa retired from the world, and
became a priestess of the Goddess Diana.
While these things were happening, Pericles went on to Tarsus with his
little daughter, whom he called Marina, because she had been born at sea.
Leaving her in the hands of his old friend the Governor of Tarsus, the
King sailed for his own dominions.
Now Dionyza, the wife of the Governor of Tarsus, was a jealous and wicked
woman, and finding that the young Princess grew up a more accomplished and
charming girl than her own daughter, she determined to take Marina's life.
So when Marina was fourteen, Dionyza ordered one of her servants to take
her away and kill her. This villain would have done so, but that he was
interrupted by some pirates who came in and carried Marina off to sea with
them, and took her to Mitylene, where they sold her as a slave. Yet such
was her goodness, her grace, and her beauty, that she soon became honored
there, and Lysimachus, the young Governor, fell deep in love with her, and
would have married her, but that he thought she must be of too humble
parentage to become the wife of one in his high position.
The wicked Dionyza believed, from her servant's report, that Marina was
really dead, and so she put up a monument to her memory, and showed it to
King Pericles, when after long years of absence he came to see his
much-loved child. When he heard that she was dead, his grief was terrible
to see. He set sail once more, and putting on sackcloth, vowed never to
wash his face or cut his hair again. There was a pavilion erected on deck,
and there he lay alone, and for three months he spoke word to none.
At last it chanced that his ship came into the port of Mitylene, and
Lysimachus, the Governor, went on board to enquire whence the vessel came.
When he heard the story of Pericles' sorrow and silence, he bethought him
of Marina, and believing that she could rouse the King from his stupor,
sent for her and bade her try her utmost to persuade the King to speak,
promising whatever reward she would, if she succeeded. Marina gladly
obeyed, and sending the rest away, she sat and sang to her poor
grief-laden father, yet, sweet as was her voice, he made no sign. So
presently she spoke to him, saying that her grief might equal his, for,
though she was a slave, she came from ancestors that stood equal to mighty
kings.
Something in her voice and story touched the King's heart, and he looked
up at her, and as he looked, he saw with wonder how like she was to his
lost wife, so with a great hope springing up in his heart, he bade her
tell her story.
Then, with many interruptions from the
King, she told him who she was and how she had escaped from the cruel
Dionyza. So Pericles knew that this was indeed his daughter, and he kissed
her again and again, crying that his great seas of joy drowned him with
their sweetness. “Give me my robes,” he said: “O Heaven, bless my girl!”
Then there came to him, though none else could hear it, the sound of
heavenly music, and falling asleep, he beheld the goddess Diana, in a
vision.
“Go,” she said to him, “to my temple at Ephesus, and when my maiden
priests are met together, reveal how thou at sea didst lose thy wife.”
Pericles obeyed the goddess and told his tale before her altar. Hardly had
he made an end, when the chief priestess, crying out, “You are--you are--O
royal Pericles!” fell fainting to the ground, and presently recovering,
she spoke again to him, “O my lord, are you not Pericles?” “The voice of
dead Thaisa!” exclaimed the King in wonder. “That Thaisa am I,” she said,
and looking at her he saw that she spoke the very truth.
Thus Pericles and Thaisa, after long and bitter suffering, found happiness
once more, and in the joy of their meeting they forgot the pain of the
past. To Marina great happiness was given, and not only in being restored
to her dear parents; for she married Lysimachus, and became a princess in
the land where she had been sold as a slave.
Then, while Hamlet listened in surprise,
Horatio told how he, with two gentlemen of the guard, had seen the King's
ghost on the battlements. Hamlet went that night, and true enough, at
midnight, the ghost of the King, in the armor he had been wont to wear,
appeared on the battlements in the chill moonlight. Hamlet was a brave
youth. Instead of running away from the ghost he spoke to it--and when it
beckoned him he followed it to a quiet place, and there the ghost told him
that what he had suspected was true. The wicked Claudius had indeed killed
his good brother the King, by dropping poison into his ear as he slept in
his orchard in the afternoon.
“And you,” said the ghost, “must avenge this cruel murder-- on my wicked
brother. But do nothing against the Queen-- for I have loved her, and she
is your mother. Remember me.”
Then seeing the morning approach, the ghost vanished.
“Now,” said Hamlet, “there is nothing left but revenge. Remember thee--I
will remember nothing else--books, pleasure, youth--let all go--and your
commands alone live on my brain.”
So when his friends came back he made them swear to keep the secret of the
ghost, and then went in from the battlements, now gray with mingled dawn
and moonlight, to think how he might best avenge his murdered father.
The shock of seeing and hearing his father's ghost made him feel almost
mad, and for fear that his uncle might notice that he was not himself, he
determined to hide his mad longing for revenge under a pretended madness
in other matters.
And when he met Ophelia, who loved him--and to whom he had given gifts,
and letters, and many loving words--he behaved so wildly to her, that she
could not but think him mad. For she loved him so that she could not
believe he would be as cruel as this, unless he were quite mad. So she
told her father, and showed him a pretty letter from Hamlet. And in the
letter was much folly, and this pretty verse--
“Doubt that the stars are fire;
Doubt that the sun doth move;
Doubt truth to be a liar;
But never doubt I love.”
And from that time everyone believed that the cause of Hamlet's
supposed madness was love.
Poor Hamlet was very unhappy. He longed to obey his father's ghost--and
yet he was too gentle and kindly to wish to kill another man, even his
father's murderer. And sometimes he wondered whether, after all, the ghost
spoke truly.
Just at this time some actors came to the Court, and Hamlet ordered them
to perform a certain play before the King and Queen. Now, this play was
the story of a man who had been murdered in his garden by a near
relation, who afterwards married the dead man's wife.
You may imagine the feelings of the wicked King, as he sat on his throne,
with the Queen beside him and all his Court around, and saw, acted on the
stage, the very wickedness that he had himself done. And when, in the
play, the wicked relation poured poison into the ear of the sleeping man,
the wicked Claudius suddenly rose, and staggered from the room--the Queen
and others following.
Then said Hamlet to his friends--
“Now I am sure the ghost spoke true. For if Claudius had not done this
murder, he could not have been so distressed to see it in a play.”
Now the Queen sent for Hamlet, by the King's desire, to scold him for his
conduct during the play, and for other matters; and Claudius, wishing to
know exactly what happened, told old Polonius to hide himself behind the
hangings in the Queen's room. And as they talked, the Queen got frightened
at Hamlet's rough, strange words, and cried for help, and Polonius behind
the curtain cried out too. Hamlet, thinking it was the King who was hidden
there, thrust with his sword at the hangings, and killed, not the King,
but poor old Polonius.
So now Hamlet had offended his uncle and his mother, and by bad hap killed
his true love's father.
“Oh! what a rash and bloody deed is
this,” cried the Queen.
And Hamlet answered bitterly, “Almost as bad as to kill a king, and marry
his brother.” Then Hamlet told the Queen plainly all his thoughts and how
he knew of the murder, and begged her, at least, to have no more
friendship or kindness of the base Claudius, who had killed the good King.
And as they spoke the King's ghost again appeared before Hamlet, but the
Queen could not see it. So when the ghost had gone, they parted.
When the Queen told Claudius what had passed, and how Polonius was dead,
he said, “This shows plainly that Hamlet is mad, and since he has killed
the Chancellor, it is for his own safety that we must carry out our plan,
and send him away to England.”
So Hamlet was sent, under charge of two courtiers who served the King, and
these bore letters to the English Court, requiring that Hamlet should be
put to death. But Hamlet had the good sense to get at these letters, and
put in others instead, with the names of the two courtiers who were so
ready to betray him. Then, as the vessel went to England, Hamlet escaped
on board a pirate ship, and the two wicked courtiers left him to his fate,
and went on to meet theirs.
Hamlet hurried home, but in the meantime a dreadful thing had happened.
Poor pretty Ophelia, having lost her lover and her father, lost her wits
too, and went in sad madness about the Court, with straws, and weeds, and
flowers in her hair, singing strange scraps of songs, and talking poor,
foolish, pretty talk with no heart of meaning to it. And one day, coming
to a stream where willows grew, she tried to bang a flowery garland on a
willow, and fell into the water with all her flowers, and so died.
And Hamlet had loved her, though his
plan of seeming madness had made him hide it; and when he came back, he
found the King and Queen, and the Court, weeping at the funeral of his
dear love and lady.
Ophelia's brother, Laertes, had also just come to Court to ask justice for
the death of his father, old Polonius; and now, wild with grief, he leaped
into his sister's grave, to clasp her in his arms once more.
“I loved her more than forty thousand brothers,” cried Hamlet, and leapt
into the grave after him, and they fought till they were parted.
Afterwards Hamlet begged Laertes to forgive him.
“I could not bear,” he said, “that any, even a brother, should seem to
love her more than I.”
But the wicked Claudius would not let them be friends. He told Laertes how
Hamlet had killed old Polonius, and between them they made a plot to slay
Hamlet by treachery.
Laertes challenged him to a fencing match, and all the Court were present.
Hamlet had the blunt foil always used in fencing, but Laertes had prepared
for himself a sword, sharp, and tipped with poison. And the wicked King
had made ready a bowl of poisoned wine, which he meant to give poor Hamlet
when he should grow warm with the sword play, and should call for drink.
So Laertes and Hamlet fought, and Laertes, after some fencing, gave Hamlet
a sharp sword thrust. Hamlet, angry at this treachery--for they had been
fencing, not as men fight, but as they play--closed with Laertes in a
struggle; both dropped their swords, and when they picked them up again,
Hamlet, without noticing it, had exchanged his own blunt sword for
Laertes' sharp and poisoned one. And with one thrust of it he pierced
Laertes, who fell dead by his own treachery.
At this moment the Queen cried out, “The drink, the drink! Oh, my dear
Hamlet! I am poisoned!”
She had drunk of the poisoned bowl the King had prepared for Hamlet, and
the King saw the Queen, whom, wicked as he was, he really loved, fall dead
by his means.
Then Ophelia being dead, and Polonius, and the Queen, and Laertes, and the
two courtiers who had been sent to England, Hamlet at last found courage
to do the ghost's bidding and avenge his father's murder--which, if he had
braced up his heart to do long before, all these lives had been spared,
and none had suffered but the wicked King, who well deserved to die.
Hamlet, his heart at last being great enough to do the deed he ought,
turned the poisoned sword on the false King.
“Then--venom--do thy work!” he cried, and the King died.
So Hamlet in the end kept the promise he had made his father. And all
being now accomplished, he himself died. And those who stood by saw him
die, with prayers and tears, for his friends and his people loved him with
their whole hearts. Thus ends the tragic tale of Hamlet, Prince of
Denmark.
Imogen
When he was come to Rome, where he had
gone to stay with an old friend of his father's, he spent his days still
in thinking of his dear Imogen, and his nights in dreaming of her. One day
at a feast some Italian and French noblemen were talking of their
sweethearts, and swearing that they were the most faithful and honorable
and beautiful ladies in the world. And a Frenchman reminded Leonatus how
he had said many times that his wife Imogen was more fair, wise, and
constant than any of the ladies in France.
“I say so still,” said Leonatus.
“She is not so good but that she would deceive,” said Iachimo, one of the
Italian nobles.
“She never would deceive,” said Leonatus.
“I wager,” said Iachimo, “that, if I go to Britain, I can persuade your
wife to do whatever I wish, even if it should be against your wishes.”
“That you will never do,” said Leonatus. “I wager this ring upon my
finger,” which was the very ring Imogen had given him at parting, “that my
wife will keep all her vows to me, and that you will never persuade her to
do otherwise.”
So Iachimo wagered half his estate against the ring on Leonatus's finger,
and started forthwith for Britain, with a letter of introduction to
Leonatus's wife. When he reached there he was received with all kindness;
but he was still determined to win his wager.
He told Imogen that her husband thought no more of her, and went on to
tell many cruel lies about him. Imogen listened at first, but presently
perceived what a wicked person Iachimo was, and ordered him to leave her.
Then he said--
“Pardon me, fair lady, all that I have said is untrue. I only told you
this to see whether you would believe me, or whether you were as much to
be trusted as your husband thinks. Will you forgive me?”
“I forgive you freely,” said Imogen.
“Then,” went on Iachimo, “perhaps you will prove it by taking charge of a
trunk, containing a number of jewels which your husband and I and some
other gentlemen have bought as a present for the Emperor of Rome.”
“I will indeed,” said Imogen, “do anything for my husband and a friend of
my husband's. Have the jewels sent into my room, and I will take care of
them.”
“It is only for one night,” said Iachimo, “for I leave Britain again
to-morrow.”
So the trunk was carried into Imogen's
room, and that night she went to bed and to sleep. When she was fast
asleep, the lid of the trunk opened and a man got out. It was Iachimo. The
story about the jewels was as untrue as the rest of the things he had
said. He had only wished to get into her room to win his wicked wager. He
looked about him and noticed the furniture, and then crept to the side of
the bed where Imogen was asleep and took from her arm the gold bracelet
which had been the parting gift of her husband. Then he crept back to the
trunk, and next morning sailed for Rome.
When he met Leonatus, he said--
“I have been to Britain and I have won the wager, for your wife no longer
thinks about you. She stayed talking with me all one night in her room,
which is hung with tapestry and has a carved chimney-piece, and silver
andirons in the shape of two winking Cupids.”
“I do not believe she has forgotten me; I do not believe she stayed
talking with you in her room. You have heard her room described by the
servants.”
“Ah!” said Iachimo, “but she gave me this bracelet. She took it from her
arm. I see her yet. Her pretty action did outsell her gift, and yet
enriched it too. She gave it me, and said she prized it once.”
“Take the ring,” cried Leonatus, “you have won; and you might have won my
life as well, for I care nothing for it now I know my lady has forgotten
me.”
And mad with anger, he wrote letters to Britain to his old servant,
Pisanio, ordering him to take Imogen to Milford Haven, and to murder her,
because she had forgotten him and given away his gift. At the same time he
wrote to Imogen herself, telling her to go with Pisanio, his old servant,
to Milford Haven, and that he, her husband, would be there to meet her.
Now when Pisanio got this letter he was too good to carry out its orders,
and too wise to let them alone altogether. So he gave Imogen the letter
from her husband, and started with her for Milford Haven. Before he left,
the wicked Queen gave him a drink which, she said, would be useful in
sickness. She hoped he would give it to Imogen, and that Imogen would die,
and the wicked Queen's son could be King. For the Queen thought this drink
was a poison, but really and truly it was only a sleeping-draft.
When Pisanio and Imogen came near to Milford Haven, he told her what was
really in the letter he had had from her husband.
“I must go on to Rome, and see him myself,” said Imogen.
And then Pisanio helped her to dress in boy's clothes, and sent her on her
way, and went back to the Court. Before he went he gave her the drink he
had had from the Queen.
Imogen went on, getting more and more tired, and at last came to a cave.
Someone seemed to live there, but no one was in just then. So she went in,
and as she was almost dying of hunger, she took some food she saw there,
and had just done so, when an old man and two boys came into the cave. She
was very much frightened when she saw them, for she thought that they
would be angry with her for taking their food, though she had meant to
leave money for it on the table. But to her surprise they welcomed her
kindly. She looked very pretty in her boy's clothes and her face was good,
as well as pretty.
“You shall be our brother,” said both the boys; and so she stayed with
them, and helped to cook the food, and make things comfortable. But one
day when the old man, whose name was Bellarius, was out hunting with the
two boys, Imogen felt ill, and thought she would try the medicine Pisanio
had given her. So she took it, and at once became like a dead creature, so
that when Bellarius and the boys came back from hunting, they thought she
was dead, and with many tears and funeral songs, they carried her away and
laid her in the wood, covered with flowers.
They sang sweet songs to her, and strewed flowers on her, pale primroses,
and the azure harebell, and eglantine, and furred moss, and went away
sorrowful. No sooner had they gone than Imogen awoke, and not knowing how
she came there, nor where she was, went wandering through the wood.
Now while Imogen had been living in the cave, the Romans had decided to
attack Britain, and their army had come over, and with them Leonatus, who
had grown sorry for his wickedness against Imogen, so had come back, not
to fight with the Romans against Britain, but with the Britons against
Rome. So as Imogen wandered alone, she met with Lucius, the Roman General,
and took service with him as his page.
When the battle was fought between the Romans and Britons, Bellarius and
his two boys fought for their own country, and Leonatus, disguised as a
British peasant, fought beside them. The Romans had taken Cymbeline
prisoner, and old Bellarius, with his sons and Leonatus, bravely rescued
the King. Then the Britons won the battle, and among the prisoners brought
before the King were Lucius, with Imogen, Iachimo, and Leonatus, who had
put on the uniform of a Roman soldier. He was tired of his life since he
had cruelly ordered his wife to be killed, and he hoped that, as a Roman
soldier, he would be put to death.
When they were brought before the King, Lucius spoke out--
“A Roman with a Roman's heart can suffer,” he said. “If I must die, so be
it. This one thing only will I entreat. My boy, a Briton born, let him be
ransomed. Never master had a page so kind, so duteous, diligent, true. He
has done no Briton harm, though he has served a Roman. Save him, Sir.”
Then Cymbeline looked on the page,
who was his own daughter, Imogen, in disguise, and though he did not
recognize her, he felt such a kindness that he not only spared the boy's
life, but he said--
“He shall have any boon he likes to ask of me, even though he ask a
prisoner, the noblest taken.”
Then Imogen said, “The boon I ask is that this gentleman shall say from
whom he got the ring he has on his finger,” and she pointed to Iachimo.
“Speak,” said Cymbeline, “how did you get that diamond?”
Then Iachimo told the whole truth of his villainy. At this, Leonatus was
unable to contain himself, and casting aside all thought of disguise, he
came forward, cursing himself for his folly in having believed Iachimo's
lying story, and calling again and again on his wife whom he believed
dead.
“Oh, Imogen, my love, my life!” he cried. “Oh, Imogen!
Then Imogen, forgetting she was disguised, cried out, “Peace, my
lord--here, here!”
Leonatus turned to strike the
forward page who thus interfered in his great trouble, and then he saw
that it was his wife, Imogen, and they fell into each other's arms.
The King was so glad to see his dear daughter again, and so grateful to
the man who had rescued him (whom he now found to be Leonatus), that he
gave his blessing on their marriage, and then he turned to Bellarius, and
the two boys. Now Bellarius spoke--
“I am your old servant, Bellarius. You accused me of treason when I had
only been loyal to you, and to be doubted, made me disloyal. So I stole
your two sons, and see,--they are here!” And he brought forward the two
boys, who had sworn to be brothers to Imogen when they thought she was a
boy like themselves.
The wicked Queen was dead of some of her own poisons, and the King, with
his three children about him, lived to a happy old age.
So the wicked were punished, and the good and true lived happy ever after.
So may the wicked suffer, and honest folk prosper till the world's end.
“Speak, who are you?” demanded Macbeth.
“Hail, Macbeth, chieftain of Glamis,” said the first woman.
“Hail, Macbeth, chieftain of Cawdor,” said the second woman.
“Hail, Macbeth, King that is to be,” said the third woman.
Then Banquo asked, “What of me?” and the third woman replied, “Thou shalt
be the father of kings.”
“Tell me more,” said Macbeth. “By my father's death I am chieftain of
Glamis, but the chieftain of Cawdor lives, and the King lives, and his
children live. Speak, I charge you!”
The women replied only by vanishing, as though suddenly mixed with the
air.
Banquo and Macbeth knew then that they had been addressed by witches, and
were discussing their prophecies when two nobles approached. One of them
thanked Macbeth, in the King's name, for his military services, and the
other said, “He bade me call you chieftain of Cawdor.”
Macbeth then learned that the man who had yesterday borne that title was
to die for treason, and he could not help thinking, “The third witch
called me, 'King that is to be.'”
“Banquo,” he said, “you see that the
witches spoke truth concerning me. Do you not believe, therefore, that
your child and grandchild will be kings?”
Banquo frowned. Duncan had two sons, Malcolm and Donalbain, and he deemed
it disloyal to hope that his son Fleance should rule Scotland. He told
Macbeth that the witches might have intended to tempt them both into
villainy by their prophecies concerning the throne. Macbeth, however,
thought the prophecy that he should be King too pleasant to keep to
himself, and he mentioned it to his wife in a letter.
Lady Macbeth was the grand-daughter of a King of Scotland who had died in
defending his crown against the King who preceded Duncan, and by whose
order her only brother was slain. To her, Duncan was a reminder of bitter
wrongs. Her husband had royal blood in his veins, and when she read his
letter, she was determined that he should be King.
When a messenger arrived to inform her that Duncan would pass a night in
Macbeth's castle, she nerved herself for a very base action.
She told Macbeth almost as soon as she saw him that Duncan must spend a
sunless morrow. She meant that Duncan must die, and that the dead are
blind. “We will speak further,” said Macbeth uneasily, and at night, with
his memory full of Duncan's kind words, he would fain have spared his
guest.
“Would you live a coward?” demanded Lady Macbeth, who seems to have
thought that morality and cowardice were the same.
“I dare do all that may become a man,”
replied Macbeth; “who dare do more is none.”
“Why did you write that letter to me?” she inquired fiercely, and with
bitter words she egged him on to murder, and with cunning words she showed
him how to do it.
After supper Duncan went to bed, and two grooms were placed on guard at
his bedroom door. Lady Macbeth caused them to drink wine till they were
stupefied. She then took their daggers and would have killed the King
herself if his sleeping face had not looked like her father's.
Macbeth came later, and found the daggers lying by the grooms; and soon
with red hands he appeared before his wife, saying, “Methought I heard a
voice cry, 'Sleep no more! Macbeth destroys the sleeping.'”
“Wash your hands,” said she. “Why did you not leave the daggers by the
grooms? Take them back, and smear the grooms with blood.”
“I dare not,” said Macbeth.
His wife dared, and she returned to him with hands red as his own, but a
heart less white, she proudly told him, for she scorned his fear.
The murderers heard a knocking, and Macbeth wished it was a knocking which
could wake the dead. It was the knocking of Macduff, the chieftain of
Fife, who had been told by Duncan to visit him early. Macbeth went to him,
and showed him the door of the King's room.
Macduff entered, and came out again
crying, “O horror! horror! horror!”
Macbeth appeared as horror-stricken as Macduff, and pretending that he
could not bear to see life in Duncan's murderers, he slew the two grooms
with their own daggers before they could proclaim their innocence.
These murders did not shriek out, and Macbeth was crowned at Scone. One of
Duncan's sons went to Ireland, the other to England. Macbeth was King. But
he was discontented. The prophecy concerning Banquo oppressed his mind. If
Fleance were to rule, a son of Macbeth would not rule. Macbeth determined,
therefore, to murder both Banquo and his son. He hired two ruffians, who
slew Banquo one night when he was on his way with Fleance to a banquet
which Macbeth was giving to his nobles. Fleance escaped.
Meanwhile Macbeth and his Queen received their guests very graciously, and
he expressed a wish for them which has been uttered thousands of times
since his day--“Now good digestion wait on appetite, and health on both.”
“We pray your Majesty to sit with us,” said Lennox, a Scotch noble; but
ere Macbeth could reply, the ghost of Banquo entered the banqueting hall
and sat in Macbeth's place.
Not noticing the ghost, Macbeth observed that, if Banquo were present, he
could say that he had collected under his roof the choicest chivalry of
Scotland. Macduff, however, had curtly declined his invitation.
The King was again pressed to take a seat, and Lennox, to whom Banquo's
ghost was invisible, showed him the chair where it sat.
But Macbeth, with his eyes of genius, saw the ghost. He saw it like a form
of mist and blood, and he demanded passionately, “Which of you have done
this?”
Still none saw the ghost but he, and to the ghost Macbeth said, “Thou
canst not say I did it.”
The ghost glided out, and Macbeth was impudent enough to raise a glass of
wine “to the general joy of the whole table, and to our dear friend
Banquo, whom we miss.”
The toast was drunk as the ghost of Banquo entered for the second time.
“Begone!” cried Macbeth. “You are senseless, mindless! Hide in the earth,
thou horrible shadow.”
Again none saw the ghost but he.
“What is it your Majesty sees?” asked one of the nobles.
The Queen dared not permit an answer to be given to this question. She
hurriedly begged her guests to quit a sick man who was likely to grow
worse if he was obliged to talk.
Macbeth, however, was well enough next day to converse with the witches
whose prophecies had so depraved him.
He found them in a cavern on a thunderous day. They were revolving round a
cauldron in which were boiling particles of many strange and horrible
creatures, and they knew he was coming before he arrived.
“Answer me what I ask you,” said the King.
“Would you rather hear it from us or our masters?” asked the first witch.
“Call them,” replied Macbeth.
Thereupon the witches poured blood into the cauldron and grease into the
flame that licked it, and a helmeted head appeared with the visor on, so
that Macbeth could only see its eyes.
He was speaking to the head, when the first witch said gravely, “He knows
thy thought,” and a voice in the head said, “Macbeth, beware Macduff, the
chieftain of Fife.” The head then descended Into the cauldron till it
disappeared.
“One word more,” pleaded Macbeth.
“He will not be commanded,” said the first witch, and then a crowned child
ascended from the cauldron bearing a tree in his hand The child said--
“Macbeth shall be unconquerable till
The Wood of Birnam climbs Dunsinane Hill.”
“That will never be,” said Macbeth; and he asked to be told if Banquo's
descendants would ever rule Scotland.
The cauldron sank into the earth; music was heard, and a procession of
phantom kings filed past Macbeth; behind them was Banquo's ghost. In each
king, Macbeth saw a likeness to Banquo, and he counted eight kings.
Then he was suddenly left alone.
His next proceeding was to send murderers to Macduff's castle. They did
not find Macduff, and asked Lady Macduff where he was. She gave a stinging
answer, and her questioner called Macduff a traitor. “Thou liest!” shouted
Macduff's little son, who was immediately stabbed, and with his last
breath entreated his mother to fly. The murderers did not leave the castle
while one of its inmates remained alive.
Macduff was in England listening, with Malcolm, to a doctor's tale of
cures wrought by Edward the Confessor when his friend Ross came to tell
him that his wife and children were no more. At first Ross dared not speak
the truth, and turn Macduff's bright sympathy with sufferers relieved by
royal virtue into sorrow and hatred. But when Malcolm said that England
was sending an army into Scotland against Macbeth, Ross blurted out his
news, and Macduff cried, “All dead, did you say? All my
pretty ones and their mother? Did you say all?”
His sorry hope was in revenge, but if he could have looked into Macbeth's
castle on Dunsinane Hill, he would have seen at work a force more solemn
than revenge. Retribution was working, for Lady Macbeth was mad. She
walked in her sleep amid ghastly dreams. She was wont to wash her hands
for a quarter of an hour at a time; but after all her washing, would still
see a red spot of blood upon her skin. It was pitiful to hear her cry that
all the perfumes of Arabia could not sweeten her little hand.
“Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased?” inquired Macbeth of the
doctor, but the doctor replied that his patient must minister to her own
mind. This reply gave Macbeth a scorn of medicine. “Throw physic to the
dogs,” he said; “I'll none of it.”
One day he heard a sound of women crying. An officer approached him and
said, “The Queen, your Majesty, is dead.” “Out, brief candle,” muttered
Macbeth, meaning that life was like a candle, at the mercy of a puff of
air. He did not weep; he was too familiar with death.
Presently a messenger told him that he saw Birnam Wood on the march.
Macbeth called him a liar and a slave, and threatened to hang him if he
had made a mistake. “If you are right you can hang me,” he said.
From the turret windows of Dunsinane
Castle, Birnam Wood did indeed appear to be marching. Every soldier of the
English army held aloft a bough which he had cut from a tree in that wood,
and like human trees they climbed Dunsinane Hill.
Macbeth had still his courage. He went to battle to conquer or die, and
the first thing he did was to kill the English general's son in single
combat. Macbeth then felt that no man could fight him and live, and when
Macduff came to him blazing for revenge, Macbeth said to him, “Go back; I
have spilt too much of your blood already.”
“My voice is in my sword,” replied Macduff, and hacked at him and bade him
yield.
“I will not yield!” said Macbeth, but his last hour had struck. He fell.
Macbeth's men were in retreat when Macduff came before Malcolm holding a
King's head by the hair.
“Hail, King!” he said; and the new King looked at the old.
So Malcolm reigned after Macbeth; but in years that came afterwards the
descendants of Banquo were kings.
Let alone, AEgeon found his home too dreary
to dwell in, and traveled for five years. He did not, during his absence,
learn all the news of Syracuse, or he would never have gone to Ephesus.
As it was, his melancholy wandering ceased in that town, where he was
arrested almost as soon as he arrived. He then found that the Duke of
Syracuse had been acting in so tyrannical a manner to Ephesians unlucky
enough to fall into his hands, that the Government of Ephesus had angrily
passed a law which punished by death or a fine of a thousand pounds any
Syracusan who should come to Ephesus. AEgeon was brought before Solinus,
Duke of Ephesus, who told him that he must die or pay a thousand pounds
before the end of the day.
You will think there was fate in this when I tell you that the children
who were kidnaped by the fishermen of Corinth were now citizens of
Ephesus, whither they had been brought by Duke Menaphon, an uncle of Duke
Solinus. They will henceforth be called Antipholus of Ephesus and Dromio
of Ephesus.
Moreover, on the very day when AEgeon was arrested, Antipholus of Syracuse
landed in Ephesus and pretended that he came from Epidamnum in order to
avoid a penalty. He handed his money to his servant Dromio of Syracuse,
and bade him take it to the Centaur Inn and remain there till he came.
In less than ten minutes he was met on the Mart by Dromio of Ephesus, his
brother's slave, and immediately mistook him for his own Dromio. “Why are
you back so soon? Where did you leave the money?” asked Antipholus of
Syracuse.
This Drornio knew of no money except sixpence, which he had received on
the previous Wednesday and given to the saddler; but he did know that his
mistress was annoyed because his master was not in to dinner, and he asked
Antipholus of Syracuse to go to a house called The Phoenix without delay.
His speech angered the hearer, who would have beaten him if he had not
fled. Antipholus of Syracuse them went to The Centaur, found that his gold
had been deposited there, and walked out of the inn.
He was wandering about Ephesus when two beautiful ladies signaled to him
with their hands. They were sisters, and their names were Adriana and
Luciana. Adriana was the wife of his brother Antipholus of Ephesus, and
she had made up her mind, from the strange account given her by Dromio of
Ephesus, that her husband preferred another woman to his wife. “Ay, you
may look as if you did not know me,” she said to the man who was really
her brother-in-law, “but I can remember when no words were sweet unless I
said them, no meat flavorsome unless I carved it.”
“Is it I you address?” said Antipholus of Syracuse stiffly. “I do not know
you.”
“Fie, brother,” said Luciana. “You know perfectly well that she sent
Dromio to you to bid you come to dinner;” and Adriana said, “Come, come; I
have been made a fool of long enough. My truant husband shall dine with me
and confess his silly pranks and be forgiven.”
They were determined ladies, and Antipholus of Syracuse grew weary of
disputing with them, and followed them obediently to The Phoenix, where a
very late “mid-day” dinner awaited them.
They were at dinner when Antipholus of Ephesus and his slave Dromio
demanded admittance. “Maud, Bridget, Marian, Cecily, Gillian, Ginn!”
shouted Dromio of Ephesus, who knew all his fellow-servants' names by
heart.
From within came the reply, “Fool, dray-horse, coxcomb, idiot!” It was
Dromio of Syracuse unconsciously insulting his brother.
Master and man did their best to get in, short of using a crowbar, and
finally went away; but Antipholus of Ephesus felt so annoyed with his wife
that he decided to give a gold chain which he had promised her, to another
woman.
Inside The Phoenix, Luciana, who believed Antipholus of Syracuse to be her
sister's husband, attempted, by a discourse in rhyme, when alone with him,
to make him kinder to Adriana. In reply he told her that he was not
married, but that he loved her so much that, if Luciana were a mermaid, he
would gladly lie on the sea if he might feel beneath him her floating
golden hair.
Luciana was shocked and left him, and reported his lovemaking to Adriana,
who said that her husband was old and ugly, and not fit to be seen or
heard, though secretly she was very fond of him.
Antipholus of Syracuse soon received a visitor in the shape of Angelo the
goldsmith, of whom Antipholus of Ephesus had ordered the chain which he
had promised his wife and intended to give to another woman.
The goldsmith handed the chain to Antipholus of Syracuse, and treated his
“I bespoke it not” as mere fun, so that the puzzled merchant took the
chain as good-humoredly as he had partaken of Adriana's dinner. He offered
payment, but Angelo foolishly said he would call again.
The consequence was that Angelo was
without money when a creditor of the sort that stands no nonsense,
threatened him with arrest unless he paid his debt immediately. This
creditor had brought a police officer with him, and Angelo was relieved to
see Antipholus of Ephesus coming out of the house where he had been dining
because he had been locked out of The Phoenix. Bitter was Angelo's dismay
when Antipholus denied receipt of the chain. Angelo could have sent his
mother to prison if she had said that, and he gave Antipholus of Ephesus
in charge.
At this moment up came Dromio of Syracuse and told the wrong Antipholus
that he had shipped his goods, and that a favorable wind was blowing. To
the ears of Antipholus of Ephesus this talk was simple nonsense. He would
gladly have beaten the slave, but contented himself with crossly telling
him to hurry to Adriana and bid her send to her arrested husband a purse
of money which she would find in his desk.
Though Adriana was furious with her husband because she thought he had
been making love to her sister, she did not prevent Luciana from getting
the purse, and she bade Dromio of Syracuse bring home his master
immediately.
Unfortunately, before Dromio could reach the police station he met his
real master, who had never been arrested, and did not understand what he
meant by offering him a purse. Antipholus of Syracuse was further
surprised when a lady whom he did not know asked him for a chain that he
had promised her. She was, of course, the lady with whom Antipholus of
Ephesus had dined when his brother was occupying his place at table.
“Avaunt, thou witch!” was the answer which, to her astonishment, she
received.
Meanwhile Antipholus of Ephesus waited vainly for the money which was to
have released him. Never a good-tempered man, he was crazy with anger when
Dromio of Ephesus, who, of course, had not been instructed to fetch a
purse, appeared with nothing more useful than a rope. He beat the slave in
the street despite the remonstrance of the police officer; and his temper
did not mend when Adriana, Luciana, and a doctor arrived under the
impression that he was mad and must have his pulse felt. He raged so much
that men came forward to bind him. But the kindness of Adriana spared him
this shame. She promised to pay the sum demanded of him, and asked the
doctor to lead him to The Phoenix.
Angelo's merchant creditor being
paid, the two were friendly again, and might soon have been seen chatting
before an abbey about the odd behavior of Antipholus of Ephesus. “Softly,”
said the merchant at last, “that's he, I think.”
It was not; it was Antipholus of Syracuse with his servant Dromio, and he
wore Angelo's chain round his neck! The reconciled pair fairly pounced
upon him to know what he meant by denying the receipt of the chain he had
the impudence to wear. Antipholus of Syracuse lost his temper, and drew
his sword, and at that moment Adriana and several others appeared. “Hold!”
shouted the careful wife. “Hurt him not; he is mad. Take his sword away.
Bind him--and Dromio too.”
Dromio of Syracuse did not wish to be bound, and he said to his master,
“Run, master! Into that abbey, quick, or we shall be robbed!”
They accordingly retreated into the abbey.
Adriana, Luciana, and a crowd remained outside, and the Abbess came out,
and said, “People, why do you gather here?”
“To fetch my poor distracted husband,” replied Adriana.
Angelo and the merchant remarked that they had not known that he was mad.
Adriana then told the Abbess rather too much about her wifely worries, for
the Abbess received the idea that Adriana was a shrew, and that if her
husband was distracted he had better not return to her for the present.
Adriana determined, therefore, to complain to Duke Solinus, and, lo and
behold! a minute afterwards the great man appeared with officers and two
others. The others were AEgeon and the headsman. The thousand marks had
not been found, and AEgeon's fate seemed sealed.
Ere the Duke could pass the abbey Adriana knelt before him, and told a
woeful tale of a mad husband rushing about stealing jewelry and drawing
his sword, adding that the Abbess refused to allow her to lead him home.
The Duke bade the Abbess be summoned, and no sooner had he given the order
than a servant from The Phoenix ran to Adriana with the tale that his
master had singed off the doctor's beard.
“Nonsense!” said Adriana, “he's in the abbey.”
“As sure as I live I speak the truth,” said the servant.
Antipholus of Syracuse had not come out of the abbey, before his brother
of Ephesus prostrated himself in front of the Duke, exclaiming, “Justice,
most gracious Duke, against that woman.” He pointed to Adriana. “She has
treated another man like her husband in my own house.”
Even while he was speaking AEgeon said,
“Unless I am delirious, I see my son Antipholus.”
No one noticed him, and Antipholus of Ephesus went on to say how the
doctor, whom he called “a threadbare juggler,” had been one of a gang who
tied him to his slave Dromio, and thrust them into a vault whence he had
escaped by gnawing through his bonds.
The Duke could not understand how the same man who spoke to him was seen
to go into the abbey, and he was still wondering when AEgeon asked
Antipholus of Ephesus if he was not his son. He replied, “I never saw my
father in my life;” but so deceived was AEgeon by his likeness to the
brother whom he had brought up, that he said, “Thou art ashamed to
acknowledge me in misery.”
Soon, however, the Abbess advanced with Antipholus of Syracuse and Dromio
of Syracuse.
Then cried Adriana, “I see two husbands or mine eyes deceive me;” and
Antipholus, espying his father, said, “Thou art AEgeon or his ghost.”
It was a day of surprises, for the Abbess said, “I will free that man by
paying his fine, and gain my husband whom I lost. Speak, AEgeon, for I am
thy wife AEmilia.”
The Duke was touched. “He is free without a fine,” he said.
So AEgeon and AEmilia were reunited, and Adriana and her husband
reconciled; but no one was happier than Antipholus of Syracuse, who, in
the Duke's presence, went to Luciana and said, “I told you I loved you.
Will you be my wife?”
Her answer was given by a look, and therefore is not written.
The two Dromios were glad to think they would receive no more beatings.
Choosing the Casket
The caskets were of gold, silver, and
lead. The gold one bore this inscription:--“Who chooseth me shall gain
what many men desire;” the silver one had this:--“Who chooseth me shall
get as much as he deserves;” while on the lead one were these words:--“Who
chooseth me must give and hazard all he hath.” The Prince of Morocco, as
brave as he was black, was among the first to submit to this test. He
chose the gold casket, for he said neither base lead nor silver could
contain her picture. So be chose the gold casket, and found inside the
likeness of what many men desire--death.
After him came the haughty Prince of Arragon, and saying, “Let me have
what I deserve--surely I deserve the lady,” he chose the silver one, and
found inside a fool's head. “Did I deserve no more than a fool's head?” he
cried.
Then at last came Bassanio, and Portia would have delayed him from making
his choice from very fear of his choosing wrong. For she loved him dearly,
even as he loved her. “But,” said Bassanio, “let me choose at once, for,
as I am, I live upon the rack.”
Then Portia bade her servants to bring music and play while her gallant
lover made his choice. And Bassanio took the oath and walked up to the
caskets--the musicians playing softly the while. “Mere outward show,” he
said, “is to be despised. The world is still deceived with ornament, and
so no gaudy gold or shining silver for me. I choose the lead casket; joy
be the consequence!” And opening it, he found fair Portia's portrait
inside, and he turned to her and asked if it were true that she was his.
“Yes,” said Portia, “I am yours, and this house
is yours, and with them I give you this ring, from which you must never
part.”
And Bassanio, saying that he could hardly speak for joy, found words to
swear that he would never part with the ring while he lived.
Then suddenly all his happiness was dashed with sorrow, for messengers
came from Venice to tell him that Antonio was ruined, and that Shylock
demanded from the Duke the fulfilment of the bond, under which he was
entitled to a pound of the merchant's flesh. Portia was as grieved as
Bassanio to hear of the danger which threatened his friend.
“First,” she said, “take me to church and make me your wife, and then go
to Venice at once to help your friend. You shall take with you money
enough to pay his debt twenty times over.”
But when her newly-made husband had gone, Portia went after him, and
arrived in Venice disguised as a lawyer, and with an introduction from a
celebrated lawyer Bellario, whom the Duke of Venice had called in to
decide the legal questions raised by Shylock's claim to a pound of
Antonio's flesh. When the Court met, Bassanio offered Shylock twice the
money borrowed, if he would withdraw his claim. But the money-lender's
only answer was--
“If every ducat in six thousand ducats,
Were in six parts, and every part a ducat,
I would not draw them,--I would have my bond.”
It was then that Portia arrived in her disguise, and not even her
own husband knew her. The Duke gave her welcome on account of the great
Bellario's introduction, and left the settlement of the case to her. Then
in noble words she bade Shylock have mercy. But he was deaf to her
entreaties. “I will have the pound of flesh,” was his reply.
“What have you to say?” asked Portia of the merchant.
“But little,” he answered; “I am armed and well prepared.”
“The Court awards you a pound of Antonio's flesh,” said Portia to the
money-lender.
“Most righteous judge!” cried Shylock. “A
sentence: come, prepare.”
“Tarry a little. This bond gives you no right to Antonio's blood, only to
his flesh. If, then, you spill a drop of his blood, all your property will
be forfeited to the State. Such is the Law.”
And Shylock, in his fear, said, “Then I will take Bassanio's offer.”
“No,” said Portia sternly, “you shall have nothing but your bond. Take
your pound of flesh, but remember, that if you take more or less, even by
the weight of a hair, you will lose your property and your life.”
Shylock now grew very much frightened. “Give me my three thousand ducats
that I lent him, and let him go.”
Bassanio would have paid it to him, but said Portia, “No! He shall have
nothing but his bond.”
“You, a foreigner,” she added, “have sought to
take the life of a Venetian citizen, and thus by the Venetian law, your
life and goods are forfeited. Down, therefore, and beg mercy of the Duke.”
Thus were the tables turned, and no mercy would have been shown to Shylock
had it not been for Antonio. As it was, the money-lender forfeited half
his fortune to the State, and he had to settle the other half on his
daughter's husband, and with this he had to be content.
Bassanio, in his gratitude to the clever lawyer, was induced to part with
the ring his wife had given him, and with which he had promised never to
part, and when on his return to Belmont he confessed as much to Portia,
she seemed very angry, and vowed she would not be friends with him until
she had her ring again. But at last she told him that it was she who, in
the disguise of the lawyer, had saved his friend's life, and got the ring
from him. So Bassanio was forgiven, and made happier than ever, to know
how rich a prize he had drawn in the lottery of the caskets.
Of course, Timon was much praised.
A jeweler who sold him a diamond pretended that it was not quite perfect
till Timon wore it. “You mend the jewel by wearing it,” he said. Timon
gave the diamond to a lord called Sempronius, and the lord exclaimed, “O,
he's the very soul of bounty.” “Timon is infinitely dear to me,” said
another lord, called Lucullus, to whom he gave a beautiful horse; and
other Athenians paid him compliments as sweet.
But when Apemantus had listened to some of them, he said, “I'm going to
knock out an honest Athenian's brains.”
“You will die for that,” said Timon.
“Then I shall die for doing nothing,” said Apemantus. And now you know
what a joke was like four hundred years before Christ.
This Apernantus was a frank despiser of mankind, but a healthy one,
because he was not unhappy. In this mixed world anyone with a number of
acquaintances knows a person who talks bitterly of men, but does not shun
them, and boasts that he is never deceived by their fine speeches, and is
inwardly cheerful and proud. Apemantus was a man like that.
Timon, you will be surprised to hear, became much worse than Apemantus,
after the dawning of a day which we call Quarter Day.
Quarter Day is the day when bills pour in. The grocer, the butcher, and
the baker are all thinking of their debtors on that day, and the wise man
has saved enough money to be ready for them. But Timon had not; and he did
not only owe money for food. He owed it for jewels and horses and
furniture; and, worst of all, he owed it to money-lenders, who expected
him to pay twice as much as he had borrowed.
Quarter Day is a day when promises to pay are scorned, and on that day
Timon was asked for a large sum of money. “Sell some land,” he said to his
steward. “You have no land,” was the reply. “Nonsense! I had a hundred,
thousand acres,” said Timon. “You could have spent the price of the world
if you had possessed it,” said Flavius.
“Borrow some then,” said Timon; “try
Ventidius.” He thought of Ventidius because he had once got Ventidius out
of prison by paying a creditor of this young man. Ventidius was now rich.
Timon trusted in his gratitude. But not for all; so much did he owe!
Servants were despatched with requests for loans of money to several
friends:
One servant (Flaminius) went to Lucullus. When he was announced Lucullus
said, “A gift, I warrant. I dreamt of a silver jug and basin last night.”
Then, changing his tone, “How is that honorable, free-hearted, perfect
gentleman, your master, eh?”
“Well in health, sir,” replied Flaminius.
“And what have you got there under your cloak?” asked Lucullus, jovially.
“Faith, sir, nothing but an empty box, which, on my master's behalf, I beg
you to fill with money, sir.”
“La! la! la!” said Lucullus, who could not pretend to mean, “Ha! ha! ha!”
“Your master's one fault is that he is too fond of giving parties. I've
warned him that it was expensive. Now, look here, Flaminius, you know this
is no time to lend money without security, so suppose you act like a good
boy and tell him that I was not at home. Here's three solidares for
yourself.”
“Back, wretched money,” cried Flaminius, “to him who worships you!”
Others of Timon's friends were tried and found stingy. Amongst them was
Sempronius.
“Hum,” he said to Timon's servant, “has he asked Ventidius? Ventidius is
beholden to him.”
“He refused.”
“Well, have you asked Lucullus?”
“He refused.”
“A poor compliment to apply to me last of all,” said Sempronius, in
affected anger. “If he had sent to me at first, I would gladly have lent
him money, but I'm not going to be such a fool as to lend him any now.”
“Your lordship makes a good villain,” said the servant.
When Timon found that his friends were so mean, he took advantage of a
lull in his storm of creditors to invite Ventidius and Company to a
banquet. Flavius was horrified, but Ventidius and Company, were not in the
least ashamed, and they assembled accordingly in Timon's house, and said
to one another that their princely host had been jesting with them.
“I had to put off an important engagement in order to come here,” said
Lucullus; “but who could refuse Timon?”
“It was a real grief to me to be without ready
money when he asked for some,” said Sempronius.
“The same here,” chimed in a third lord.
Timon now appeared, and his guests vied with one another in apologies and
compliments. Inwardly sneering, Timon was gracious to them all.
In the banqueting ball was a table resplendent with covered dishes. Mouths
watered. These summer-friends loved good food.
“Be seated, worthy friends,” said Timon. He then prayed aloud to the gods
of Greece. “Give each man enough,” he said, “for if you, who are our gods,
were to borrow of men they would cease to adore you. Let men love the
joint more than the host. Let every score of guests contain twenty
villains. Bless my friends as much as they have blessed me. Uncover the
dishes, dogs, and lap!”
The hungry lords were too much surprised by this speech to resent it. They
thought Timon was unwell, and, although he had called them dogs, they
uncovered the dishes.
There was nothing in them but warm water.
“May you never see a better feast,” wished Timon “I wash off the
flatteries with which you plastered me and sprinkle you with your
villainy.” With these words he threw the water into his guests' faces, and
then he pelted them with the dishes. Having thus ended the banquet, he
went into an outhouse, seized a spade, and quitted Athens for ever.
His next dwelling was a cave near the sea.
Of all his friends, the only one who had not refused him aid was a
handsome soldier named Alcibiades, and he had not been asked because,
having quarreled with the Government of Athens, he had left that town. The
thought that Alcibiades might have proved a true friend did not soften
Timon's bitter feeling. He was too weak-minded to discern the fact that
good cannot be far from evil in this mixed world. He determined to see
nothing better in all mankind than the ingratitude of Ventidius and the
meanness of Lucullus.
He became a vegetarian, and talked pages to himself as he dug in the earth
for food.
One day, when he was digging for roots near the shore, his spade struck
gold. If he had been a wise man he would have enriched himself quickly,
and returned to Athens to live in comfort. But the sight of the gold vein
gave no joy but only scorn to Timon. “This yellow slave,” he said, “will
make and break religions. It will make black white and foul fair. It will
buy murder and bless the accursed.”
He was still ranting when Alcibiades, now an enemy of Athens, approached
with his soldiers and two beautiful women who cared for nothing but
pleasure.
Timon was so changed by his bad thoughts and rough life that Alcibiades
did not recognize him at first.
“Who are you?” he asked.
“A beast, as you are,” was the reply.
Alcibiades knew his voice, and offered him help and money. But Timon would
none of it, and began to insult the women. They, however, when they found
he had discovered a gold mine, cared not a jot for his opinion of them,
but said, “Give us some gold, good Timon. Have you more?”
With further insults, Timon filled their aprons with gold ore.
“Farewell,” said Alcibiades, who deemed that Timon's wits were lost; and
then his disciplined soldiers left without profit the mine which could
have paid their wages, and marched towards Athens.
Timon continued to dig and curse, and affected great delight when he dug
up a root and discovered that it was not a grape.
Just then Apemantus appeared. “I am told that you imitate me,” said
Apemantus.
“Only,” said Timon, “because you haven't a dog which I can imitate.”
“You are revenging yourself on your friends by punishing yourself,” said
Apemantus. “That is very silly, for they live just as comfortably as they
ever did. I am sorry that a fool should imitate me.”
“If I were like you,” said Timon, “I should
throw myself away.”
“You have done so,” sneered Apemantus. “Will the cold brook make you a
good morning drink, or an east wind warm your clothes as a valet would?”
“Off with you!” said Timon; but Apemantus stayed a while longer and told
him he had a passion for extremes, which was true. Apemantus even made a
pun, but there was no good laughter to be got out of Timon.
Finally, they lost their temper like two schoolboys, and Timon said he was
sorry to lose the stone which he flung at Apemantus, who left him with an
evil wish.
This was almost an “at home” day for Timon, for when Apemantus had
departed, he was visited by some robbers. They wanted gold.
“You want too much,” said Timon. “Here are water, roots and berries.”
“We are not birds and pigs,” said a robber.
“No, you are cannibals,” said Timon. “Take the gold, then, and may it
poison you! Henceforth rob one another.”
He spoke so frightfully to them that, though they went away with full
pockets, they almost repented of their trade. His last visitor on that day
of visits was his good steward Flavius. “My dearest master!” cried he.
“Away! What are you?” said Timon.
“Have you forgotten me, sir?” asked Flavius, mournfully.
“I have forgotten all men,” was the reply; “and if you'll allow that you
are a man, I have forgotten you.”
“I was your honest servant,” said Flavius.
“Nonsense! I never had an honest man about me,” retorted Timon.
Flavius began to cry.
“What! shedding tears?” said Timon. “Come nearer, then. I will love you
because you are a woman, and unlike men, who only weep when they laugh or
beg.”
They talked awhile; then Timon said, “Yon gold is mine. I will make you
rich, Flavius, if you promise me to live by yourself and hate mankind. I
will make you very rich if you promise me that you will see the flesh
slide off the beggar's bones before you feed him, and let the debtor die
in jail before you pay his debt.”
Flavius simply said, “Let me stay to comfort you, my master.”
“If you dislike cursing, leave me,” replied Timon, and he turned his back
on Flavius, who went sadly back to Athens, too much accustomed to
obedience to force his services upon his ailing master.
The steward had accepted nothing, but a report got about that a mighty
nugget of gold had been given him by his former master, and Timon
therefore received more visitors. They were a painter and a poet, whom he
had patronized in his prosperity.
“Hail, worthy Timon!” said the poet. “We heard with astonishment how your
friends deserted you. No whip's large enough for their backs!”
“We have come,” put in the painter, “to offer our services.”
“You've heard that I have gold,” said Timon.
“There was a report,” said the painter, blushing; “but my friend and I did
not come for that.”
“Good honest men!” jeered Timon. “All the same, you shall have plenty of
gold if you will rid me of two villains.”
“Name them,” said his two visitors in one breath. “Both of you!” answered
Timon. Giving the painter a whack with a big stick, he said, “Put that
into your palette and make money out of it.” Then he gave a whack to the
poet, and said, “Make a poem out of that and get paid for it. There's gold
for you.”
They hurriedly withdrew.
Finally Timon was visited by two senators who, now that Athens was
threatened by Alcibiades, desired to have on their side this bitter noble
whose gold might help the foe.
“Forget your injuries,” said the first senator. “Athens offers you
dignities whereby you may honorably live.”
“Athens confesses that your merit was overlooked, and wishes to atone, and
more than atone, for her forgetfulness,” said the second senator.
“Worthy senators,” replied Timon, in his grim way, “I am almost weeping;
you touch me so! All I need are the eyes of a woman and the heart of a
fool.”
But the senators were patriots. They believed that this bitter man could
save Athens, and they would not quarrel with him. “Be our captain,” they
said, “and lead Athens against Alcibiades, who threatens to destroy her.”
“Let him destroy the Athenians too, for all I care,” said Timon; and
seeing an evil despair in his face, they left him.
The senators returned to Athens, and soon afterwards trumpets were blown
before its walls. Upon the walls they stood and listened to Alcibiades,
who told them that wrong-doers should quake in their easy chairs. They
looked at his confident army, and were convinced that Athens must yield if
he assaulted it, therefore they used the voice that strikes deeper than
arrows.
“These walls of ours were built by the hands of men who never wronged you,
Alcibiades,” said the first senator.
“Enter,” said the second senator, “and slay every tenth man, if your
revenge needs human flesh.”
“Spare the cradle,” said the first senator.
“I ask only justice,” said Alcibiades. “If you admit my army, I will
inflict the penalty of your own laws upon any soldier who breaks them.”
At that moment a soldier approached Alcibiades, and said, “My noble
general, Timon is dead.” He handed Alcibiades a sheet of wax, saying, “He
is buried by the sea, on the beach, and over his grave is a stone with
letters on it which I cannot read, and therefore I have impressed them on
wax.”
Alcibiades read from the sheet of wax this couplet--
“Here lie I, Timon, who, alive,
all living men did hate.
Pass by and say your worst; but pass,
and stay not here your gait.”
“Dead, then, is noble Timon,” said Alcibiades; and be entered Athens
with an olive branch instead of a sword.
So it was one of Timon's friends who was generous in a greater matter than
Timon's need; yet are the sorrow and rage of Timon remembered as a warning
lest another ingratitude should arise to turn love into hate.
One night Iago told Roderigo that
Othello had carried off Desdemona without the knowledge of her father,
Brabantio. He persuaded Roderigo to arouse Brabantio, and when that
senator appeared Iago told him of Desdemona's elopement in the most
unpleasant way. Though he was Othello's officer, he termed him a thief and
a Barbary horse.
Brabantio accused Othello before the Duke of Venice of using sorcery to
fascinate his daughter, but Othello said that the only sorcery he used was
his voice, which told Desdemona his adventures and hair-breadth escapes.
Desdemona was led into the council-chamber, and she explained how she
could love Othello despite his almost black face by saying, “I saw
Othello's visage in his mind.”
As Othello had married Desdemona, and she was glad to be his wife, there
was no more to be said against him, especially as the Duke wished him to
go to Cyprus to defend it against the Turks. Othello was quite ready to
go, and Desdemona, who pleaded to go with him, was permitted to join him
at Cyprus.
Othello's feelings on landing in this island were intensely joyful. “Oh,
my sweet,” he said to Desdemona, who arrived with Iago, his wife, and
Roderigo before him, “I hardly know what I say to you. I am in love with
my own happiness.”
News coming presently that the Turkish fleet was out of action, he
proclaimed a festival in Cyprus from five to eleven at night.
Cassio was on duty in the Castle where Othello ruled Cyprus, so Iago
decided to make the lieutenant drink too much. He had some difficulty, as
Cassio knew that wine soon went to his head, but servants brought wine
into the room where Cassio was, and Iago sang a drinking song, and so
Cassio lifted a glass too often to the health of the general.
When Cassio was inclined to be
quarrelsome, Iago told Roderigo to say something unpleasant to him. Cassio
cudgeled Roderigo, who ran into the presence of Montano, the ex-governor.
Montano civilly interceded for Roderigo, but received so rude an answer
from Cassio that he said, “Come, come, you're drunk!” Cassio then wounded
him, and Iago sent Roderigo out to scare the town with a cry of mutiny.
The uproar aroused Othello, who, on learning its cause, said, “Cassio, I
love thee, but never more be officer of mine.”
On Cassio and Iago being alone together, the disgraced man moaned about
his reputation. Iago said reputation and humbug were the same thing. “O
God,” exclaimed Cassio, without heeding him, “that men should put an enemy
in their mouths to steal away their brains!”
Iago advised him to beg Desdemona to ask Othello to pardon him. Cassio was
pleased with the advice, and next morning made his request to Desdemona in
the garden of the castle. She was kindness itself, and said, “Be merry,
Cassio, for I would rather die than forsake your cause.”
Cassio at that moment saw Othello advancing with Iago, and retired
hurriedly.
Iago said, “I don't like that.”
“What did you say?” asked Othello, who felt that he had meant something
unpleasant, but Iago pretended he had said nothing. “Was not that Cassio
who went from my wife?” asked Othello, and Iago, who knew that it was
Cassio and why it was Cassio, said, “I cannot think it was Cassio who
stole away in that guilty manner.”
Desdemona told Othello that it was grief and humility which made Cassio
retreat at his approach. She reminded him how Cassio had taken his part
when she was still heart-free, and found fault with her Moorish lover.
Othello was melted, and said, “I will deny thee nothing,” but Desdemona
told him that what she asked was as much for his good as dining.
Desdemona left the garden, and Iago asked if it was really true that
Cassio had known Desdemona before her marriage.
“Yes,” said Othello.
“Indeed,” said Iago, as though something that had mystified him was now
very clear.
“Is he not honest?” demanded Othello, and Iago repeated the adjective
inquiringly, as though he were afraid to say “No.”
“What do you mean?” insisted Othello.
To this Iago would only say the flat opposite of what he said to Cassio.
He had told Cassio that reputation was humbug. To Othello he said, “Who
steals my purse steals trash, but he who filches from me my good name
ruins me.”
At this Othello almost leapt into the air, and Iago was so confident of
his jealousy that he ventured to warn him against it. Yes, it was no other
than Iago who called jealousy “the green-eyed monster which doth mock the
meat it feeds on.”
Iago having given jealousy one blow, proceeded to feed it with the remark
that Desdemona deceived her father when she eloped with Othello. “If she
deceived him, why not you?” was his meaning.
Presently Desdemona re-entered to tell Othello that dinner was ready. She
saw that he was ill at ease. He explained it by a pain in his forehead.
Desdemona then produced a handkerchief, which Othello had given her. A
prophetess, two hundred years old, had made this handkerchief from the
silk of sacred silkworms, dyed it in a liquid prepared from the hearts of
maidens, and embroidered it with strawberries. Gentle Desdemona thought of
it simply as a cool, soft thing for a throbbing brow; she knew of no spell
upon it that would work destruction for her who lost it. “Let me tie it
round your head,” she said to Othello; “you will be well in an hour.” But
Othello pettishly said it was too small, and let it fall. Desdemona and he
then went indoors to dinner, and Emilia picked up the handkerchief which
Iago had often asked her to steal.
She was looking at it when Iago came in. After a few words about it he
snatched it from her, and bade her leave him.
In the garden he was joined by Othello, who
seemed hungry for the worst lies he could offer. He therefore told Othello
that he had seen Cassio wipe his mouth with a handkerchief, which, because
it was spotted with strawberries, he guessed to be one that Othello had
given his wife.
The unhappy Moor went mad with fury, and Iago bade the heavens witness
that he devoted his hand and heart and brain to Othello's service. “I
accept your love,” said Othello. “Within three days let me hear that
Cassio is dead.”
Iago's next step was to leave Desdemona's handkerchief in Cassio's room.
Cassio saw it, and knew it was not his, but he liked the strawberry
pattern on it, and he gave it to his sweetheart Bianca and asked her to
copy it for him.
Iago's next move was to induce Othello, who had been bullying Desdemona
about the handkerchief, to play the eavesdropper to a conversation between
Cassio and himself. His intention was to talk about Cassio's sweetheart,
and allow Othello to suppose that the lady spoken of was Desdemona.
“How are you, lieutenant?” asked Iago when Cassio appeared.
“The worse for being called what I am not,” replied Cassio, gloomily.
“Keep on reminding Desdemona, and you'll soon be restored,” said Iago,
adding, in a tone too low for Othello to hear, “If Bianca could set the
matter right, how quickly it would mend!”
“Alas! poor rogue,” said Cassio, “I really think she loves me,” and like
the talkative coxcomb he was, Cassio was led on to boast of Bianca's
fondness for him, while Othello imagined, with choked rage, that he
prattled of Desdemona, and thought, “I see your nose, Cassio, but not the
dog I shall throw it to.”
Othello was still spying when Bianca entered, boiling over with the idea
that Cassio, whom she considered her property, had asked her to copy the
embroidery on the handkerchief of a new sweetheart. She tossed him the
handkerchief with scornful words, and Cassio departed with her.
Othello had seen Bianca, who was in station lower, in beauty and speech
inferior far, to Desdemona and he began in spite of himself to praise his
wife to the villain before him. He praised her skill with the needle, her
voice that could “sing the savageness out of a bear,” her wit, her
sweetness, the fairness of her skin. Every time he praised her Iago said
something that made him remember his anger and utter it foully, and yet he
must needs praise her, and say, “The pity of it, Iago! O Iago, the pity of
it, Iago!”
There was never in all Iago's villainy one moment of wavering. If there
had been he might have wavered then.
“Strangle her,” he said; and “Good, good!” said his miserable dupe.
The pair were still talking murder when Desdemona appeared with a relative
of Desdemona's father, called Lodovico, who bore a letter for Othello from
the Duke of Venice. The letter recalled Othello from Cyprus, and gave the
governorship to Cassio.
Luckless Desdemona seized this unhappy moment to urge once more the suit
of Cassio.
“Fire and brimstone!” shouted Othello.
“It may be the letter agitates him,” explained Lodovico to Desdemona, and
he told her what it contained.
“I am glad,” said Desdemona. It was the first bitter speech that Othello's
unkindness had wrung out of her.
“I am glad to see you lose your temper,” said Othello.
“Why, sweet Othello?” she asked, sarcastically; and Othello slapped her
face.
Now was the time for Desdemona
to have saved her life by separation, but she knew not her peril--only
that her love was wounded to the core. “I have not deserved this,” she
said, and the tears rolled slowly down her face.
Lodovico was shocked and disgusted. “My lord,” he said, “this would not be
believed in Venice. Make her amends;” but, like a madman talking in his
nightmare, Othello poured out his foul thought in ugly speech, and roared,
“Out of my sight!”
“I will not stay to offend you,” said his wife, but she lingered even in
going, and only when he shouted “Avaunt!” did she leave her husband and
his guests.
Othello then invited Lodovico to supper, adding, “You are welcome, sir, to
Cyprus. Goats and monkeys!” Without waiting for a reply he left the
company.
Distinguished visitors detest being obliged to look on at family quarrels,
and dislike being called either goats or monkeys, and Lodovico asked Iago
for an explanation.
True to himself, Iago, in a round-about way, said that Othello was worse
than he seemed, and advised them to study his behavior and save him from
the discomfort of answering any more questions.
He proceeded to tell Roderigo to murder Cassio. Roderigo was out of tune
with his friend. He had given Iago quantities of jewels for Desdemona
without effect; Desdemona had seen none of them, for Iago was a thief.
Iago smoothed him with a lie, and when Cassio was leaving Bianca's house,
Roderigo wounded him, and was wounded in return. Cassio shouted, and
Lodovico and a friend came running up. Cassio pointed out Roderigo as his
assailant, and Iago, hoping to rid himself of an inconvenient friend,
called him “Villain!” and stabbed him, but not to death.
At the Castle, Desdemona was in a sad mood. She told Emilia that she must
leave her; her husband wished it. “Dismiss me!” exclaimed Emilia. “It was
his bidding, said Desdemona; we must not displease him now.”
She sang a song which a girl had sung whose lover had been base to her--a
song of a maiden crying by that tree whose boughs droop as though it
weeps, and she went to bed and slept.
She woke with her husband's wild eyes upon her. “Have you prayed
to-night?” he asked; and he told this blameless and sweet woman to ask
God's pardon for any sin she might have on her conscience. “I would not
kill thy soul,” he said.
He told her that Cassio had confessed, but she knew Cassio had nought to
confess that concerned her. She said that Cassio could not say anything
that would damage her. Othello said his mouth was stopped.
Then Desdemona wept, but with violent
words, in spite of all her pleading, Othello pressed upon her throat and
mortally hurt her.
Then with boding heart came Emilia, and besought entrance at the door, and
Othello unlocked it, and a voice came from the bed saying, “A guiltless
death I die.”
“Who did it?” cried Emilia; and the voice said, “Nobody--I myself.
Farewell!”
“'Twas I that killed her,” said Othello.
He poured out his evidence by that sad bed to the people who came running
in, Iago among them; but when he spoke of the handkerchief, Emilia told
the truth.
And Othello knew. “Are there no stones in heaven but thunderbolts?” he
exclaimed, and ran at Iago, who gave Emilia her death-blow and fled.
But they brought him back, and the death that came to him later on was a
relief from torture.
They would have taken Othello back to Venice to try him there, but he
escaped them on his sword. “A word or two before you go,” he said to the
Venetians in the chamber. “Speak of me as I was--no better, no worse. Say
I cast away the pearl of pearls, and wept with these hard eyes; and say
that, when in Aleppo years ago I saw a Turk beating a Venetian, I took him
by the throat and smote him thus.”
With his own hand he stabbed himself to the heart; and ere he died his
lips touched the face of Desdemona with despairing love.
Petruchio and Katherine
When Katharine came, he said, “Good-morrow,
Kate--for that, I hear, is your name.”
“You've only heard half,” said Katharine, rudely.
“Oh, no,” said Petruchio, “they call you plain Kate, and bonny Kate, and
sometimes Kate the shrew, and so, hearing your mildness praised in every
town, and your beauty too, I ask you for my wife.”
“Your wife!” cried Kate. “Never!” She said some extremely disagreeable
things to him, and, I am sorry to say, ended by boxing his ears.
“If you do that again, I'll cuff you,” he said quietly; and still
protested, with many compliments, that he would marry none but her.
When Baptista came back, he asked at once--
“How speed you with my daughter?”
“How should I speed but well,” replied Petruchio--“how, but well?”
“How now, daughter Katharine?” the father went on.
“I don't think,” said Katharine, angrily, “you
are acting a father's part in wishing me to marry this mad-cap ruffian.”
“Ah!” said Petruchio, “you and all the world would talk amiss of her. You
should see how kind she is to me when we are alone. In short, I will go
off to Venice to buy fine things for our wedding--for--kiss me, Kate! we
will be married on Sunday.”
With that, Katharine flounced out of the room by one door in a violent
temper, and he, laughing, went out by the other. But whether she fell in
love with Petruchio, or whether she was only glad to meet a man who was
not afraid of her, or whether she was flattered that, in spite of her
rough words and spiteful usage, he still desired her for his wife--she did
indeed marry him on Sunday, as he had sworn she should.
To vex and humble Katharine's naughty, proud spirit, he was late at the
wedding, and when he came, came wearing such shabby clothes that she was
ashamed to be seen with him. His servant was dressed in the same shabby
way, and the horses they rode were the sport of everyone they passed.
And, after the marriage, when should have been the wedding breakfast,
Petruchio carried his wife away, not allowing her to eat or drink--saying
that she was his now, and he could do as he liked with her.
And his manner was so violent, and he behaved all through his wedding in
so mad and dreadful a manner, that Katharine trembled and went with him.
He mounted her on a stumbling, lean, old horse, and they journeyed by
rough muddy ways to Petruchio's house, he scolding and snarling all the
way.
She was terribly tired when she reached her new home, but Petruchio was
determined that she should neither eat nor sleep that night, for he had
made up his mind to teach his bad-tempered wife a lesson she would never
forget.
So he welcomed her kindly to his house, but when supper was served he
found fault with everything--the meat was burnt, he said, and ill-served,
and he loved her far too much to let her eat anything but the best. At
last Katharine, tired out with her journey, went supperless to bed. Then
her husband, still telling her how he loved her, and how anxious he was
that she should sleep well, pulled her bed to pieces, throwing the pillows
and bedclothes on the floor, so that she could not go to bed at all, and
still kept growling and scolding at the servants so that Kate might see
how unbeautiful a thing ill-temper was.
The next day, too, Katharine's food was all found fault with, and caught
away before she could touch a mouthful, and she was sick and giddy for
want of sleep. Then she said to one of the servants--
“I pray thee go and get me some repast. I care not what.”
“What say you to a neat's foot?” said the servant.
Katharine said “Yes,” eagerly; but the servant, who was in his master's
secret, said he feared it was not good for hasty-tempered people. Would
she like tripe?
“Bring it me,” said Katharine.
“I don't think that is good for hasty-tempered people,” said the servant.
“What do you say to a dish of beef and mustard?”
“I love it,” said Kate.
“But mustard is too hot.”
“Why, then, the beef, and let the mustard go,” cried Katharine, who was
getting hungrier and hungrier.
“No,” said the servant, “you must have the mustard, or you get no beef
from me.”
“Then,” cried Katharine, losing patience, “let it be both, or one, or
anything thou wilt.”
“Why, then,” said the servant, “the mustard without the beef!”
Then Katharine saw he was making fun of her, and boxed his ears.
Just then Petruchio brought her some food--but she had scarcely begun to
satisfy her hunger, before he called for the tailor to bring her new
clothes, and the table was cleared, leaving her still hungry. Katharine
was pleased with the pretty new dress and cap that the tailor had made for
her, but Petruchio found fault with everything, flung the cap and gown on
the floor vowing his dear wife should not wear any such foolish things.
“I will have them,” cried Katharine. “All
gentlewomen wear such caps as these--”
“When you are gentle you shall have one too,” he answered, “and not till
then.” When he had driven away the tailor with angry words--but privately
asking his friend to see him paid--Petruchio said--
“Come, Kate, let's go to your father's, shabby as we are, for as the sun
breaks through the darkest clouds, so honor peereth in the meanest habit.
It is about seven o'clock now. We shall easily get there by dinner-time.”
“It's nearly two,” said Kate, but civilly enough, for she had grown to see
that she could not bully her husband, as she had done her father and her
sister; “it's nearly two, and it will be supper-time before we get there.”
“It shall be seven,” said Petruchio, obstinately, “before I start. Why,
whatever I say or do, or think, you do nothing but contradict. I won't go
to-day, and before I do go, it shall be what o'clock I say it is.”
At last they started for her father's house.
“Look at the moon,” said he.
“It's the sun,” said Katharine, and indeed it was.
“I say it is the moon. Contradicting again! It shall be sun or moon, or
whatever I choose, or I won't take you to your father's.”
Then Katharine gave in, once and for all. “What you will have it named,”
she said, “it is, and so it shall be so for Katharine.” And so it was, for
from that moment Katharine felt that she had met her master, and never
again showed her naughty tempers to him, or anyone else.
So they journeyed on to Baptista's house, and arriving there, they found
all folks keeping Bianca's wedding feast, and that of another newly
married couple, Hortensio and his wife. They were made welcome, and sat
down to the feast, and all was merry, save that Hortensio's wife, seeing
Katharine subdued to her husband, thought she could safely say many
disagreeable things, that in the old days, when Katharine was free and
froward, she would not have dared to say. But Katharine answered with such
spirit and such moderation, that she turned the laugh against the new
bride.
After dinner, when the ladies had retired, Baptista joined in a laugh
against Petruchio, saying “Now in good sadness, son Petruchio, I fear you
have got the veriest shrew of all.”
“You are wrong,” said Petruchio, “let me prove it to you. Each of us shall
send a message to his wife, desiring her to come to him, and the one whose
wife comes most readily shall win a wager which we will agree on.”
The others said yes readily enough, for each thought his own wife the most
dutiful, and each thought he was quite sure to win the wager.
They proposed a wager of twenty crowns.
“Twenty crowns,” said Petruchio, “I'll venture so much on my hawk or
hound, but twenty times as much upon my wife.”
“A hundred then,” cried Lucentio, Bianca's husband.
“Content,” cried the others.
Then Lucentio sent a message to the fair Bianca bidding her to come to
him. And Baptista said he was certain his daughter would come. But the
servant coming back, said--
“Sir, my mistress is busy, and she cannot come.”'
“There's an answer for you,” said Petruchio.
“You may think yourself fortunate if your wife does not send you a worse.”
“I hope, better,” Petruchio answered. Then Hortensio said--
“Go and entreat my wife to come to me at once.”
“Oh--if you entreat her,” said Petruchio.
“I am afraid,” answered Hortensio, sharply, “do what you can, yours will
not be entreated.”
But now the servant came in, and said--
“She says you are playing some jest, she will not come.”
“Better and better,” cried Petruchio; “now go to your mistress and say I
command her to come to me.”
They all began to laugh, saying they knew what her answer would be, and
that she would not come.
Then suddenly Baptista cried--
“Here comes Katharine!” And sure enough--there she was.
“What do you wish, sir?” she asked her husband.
“Where are your sister and Hortensio's wife?”
“Talking by the parlor fire.”
“Fetch them here.”
When she was gone to fetch them, Lucentio said--
“Here is a wonder!”
“I wonder what it means,” said Hortensio.
“It means peace,” said Petruchio, “and love, and quiet life.”
“Well,” said Baptista, “you have won the wager, and I will add another
twenty thousand crowns to her dowry--another dowry for another
daughter--for she is as changed as if she were someone else.”
So Petruchio won his wager, and had in Katharine always a loving wife and
true, and now he had broken her proud and angry spirit he loved her well,
and there was nothing ever but love between those two. And so they lived
happy ever afterwards.
She told him that nothing becomes power like
mercy. She told him that humanity receives and requires mercy from Heaven,
that it was good to have gigantic strength, and had to use it like a
giant. She told him that lightning rives the oak and spares the myrtle.
She bade him look for fault in his own breast, and if he found one, to
refrain from making it an argument against her brother's life.
Angelo found a fault in his breast at that moment. He loved Isabella's
beauty, and was tempted to do for her beauty what he would not do for the
love of man.
He appeared to relent, for he said, “Come to me to-morrow before noon.”
She had, at any rate, succeeded in prolonging her brother's life for a few
hours.'
In her absence Angelo's conscience rebuked him for trifling with his
judicial duty.
When Isabella called on him the second time, he said, “Your brother cannot
live.”
Isabella was painfully astonished, but all she said was, “Even so. Heaven
keep your Honor.”
But as she turned to go, Angelo felt that his duty and honor were slight
in comparison with the loss of her.
“Give me your love,” he said, “and Claudio shall be freed.”
“Before I would marry you, he should die if he had twenty heads to lay
upon the block,” said Isabella, for she saw then that he was not the just
man he pretended to be.
So she went to her brother in prison, to inform him that he must die. At
first he was boastful, and promised to hug the darkness of death. But when
he clearly understood that his sister could buy his life by marrying
Angelo, he felt his life more valuable than her happiness, and he
exclaimed, “Sweet sister, let me live.”
“O faithless coward! O dishonest wretch!” she cried.
At this moment the Duke came forward, in the habit of a friar, to request
some speech with Isabella. He called himself Friar Lodowick.
The Duke then told her that Angelo was affianced to Mariana, whose
love-story he related. He then asked her to consider this plan. Let
Mariana, in the dress of Isabella, go closely veiled to Angelo, and say,
in a voice resembling Isabella's, that if Claudio were spared she would
marry him. Let her take the ring from Angelo's little finger, that it
might be afterwards proved that his visitor was Mariana.
Isabella had, of course, a great respect for friars, who are as nearly
like nuns as men can be. She agreed, therefore, to the Duke's plan. They
were to meet again at the moated grange, Mariana's house.
In the street the Duke saw Lucio, who,
seeing a man dressed like a friar, called out, “What news of the Duke,
friar?” “I have none,” said the Duke.
Lucio then told the Duke some stories about Angelo. Then he told one about
the Duke. The Duke contradicted him. Lucio was provoked, and called the
Duke “a shallow, ignorant fool,” though he pretended to love him. “The
Duke shall know you better if I live to report you,” said the Duke,
grimly. Then he asked Escalus, whom he saw in the street, what he thought
of his ducal master. Escalus, who imagined he was speaking to a friar,
replied, “The Duke is a very temperate gentleman, who prefers to see
another merry to being merry himself.”
The Duke then proceeded to call on Mariana.
Isabella arrived immediately afterwards, and the Duke introduced the two
girls to one another, both of whom thought he was a friar. They went into
a chamber apart from him to discuss the saving of Claudio, and while they
talked in low and earnest tones, the Duke looked out of the window and saw
the broken sheds and flower-beds black with moss, which betrayed Mariana's
indifference to her country dwelling. Some women would have beautified
their garden: not she. She was for the town; she neglected the joys of the
country. He was sure that Angelo would not make her unhappier.
“We are agreed, father,” said Isabella, as she returned with Mariana.
So Angelo was deceived by the girl whom he had dismissed from his love,
and put on her finger a ring he wore, in which was set a milky stone which
flashed in the light with secret colors.
Hearing of her success, the Duke went next day to the prison prepared to
learn that an order had arrived for Claudio's release. It had not,
however, but a letter was banded to the Provost while he waited. His
amazement was great when the Provost read aloud these words, “Whatsoever
you may hear to the contrary, let Claudio be executed by four of the
clock. Let me have his head sent me by five.”
But the Duke said to the Provost, “You must show the Deputy another head,”
and he held out a letter and a signet. “Here,” he said, “are the hand and
seal of the Duke. He is to return, I tell you, and Angelo knows it not.
Give Angelo another head.”
The Provost thought, “This friar speaks with power. I know the Duke's
signet and I know his hand.”
He said at length, “A man died in prison this morning, a pirate of the age
of Claudio, with a beard of his color. I will show his head.”
The pirate's head was duly shown to Angelo, who was deceived by its
resemblance to Claudio's.
The Duke's return was so popular that the citizens removed the city gates
from their hinges to assist his entry into Vienna. Angelo and Escalus duly
presented themselves, and were profusely praised for their conduct of
affairs in the Duke's absence.
It was, therefore, the more unpleasant for Angelo when Isabella,
passionately angered by his treachery, knelt before the Duke, and cried
for justice.
When her story was told, the Duke cried, “To prison with her for a
slanderer of our right hand! But stay, who persuaded you to come here?”
“Friar Lodowick,” said she.
“Who knows him?” inquired the Duke.
“I do, my lord,” replied Lucio. “I beat him because he spake against your
Grace.”
A friar called Peter here said, “Friar Lodowick is a holy man.”
Isabella was removed by an officer, and Mariana came forward. She took off
her veil, and said to Angelo, “This is the face you once swore was worth
looking on.”
Bravely he faced her as she put out her hand and said, “This is the hand
which wears the ring you thought to give another.”
“I know the woman,” said Angelo. “Once there was talk of marriage between
us, but I found her frivolous.”
Mariana here burst out that they were affianced by the strongest vows.
Angelo replied by asking the Duke to insist on the production of Friar
Lodowick.
“He shall appear,” promised the Duke, and bade Escalus examine the missing
witness thoroughly while he was elsewhere.
Presently the Duke re-appeared in the character of Friar Lodowick, and
accompanied by Isabella and the Provost. He was not so much examined as
abused and threatened by Escalus. Lucio asked him to deny, if he dared,
that he called the Duke a fool and a coward, and had had his nose pulled
for his impudence.
“To prison with him!” shouted Escalus, but as hands were laid upon him,
the Duke pulled off his friar's hood, and was a Duke before them all.
“Now,” he said to Angelo, “if you have any impudence that can yet serve
you, work it for all it's worth.”
“Immediate sentence and death is all I beg,” was the reply.
“Were you affianced to Mariana?” asked the Duke.
“I was,” said Angelo.
“Then marry her instantly,” said his master. “Marry them,” he said to
Friar Peter, “and return with them here.”
“Come hither, Isabel,” said the Duke, in tender tones. “Your friar is now
your Prince, and grieves he was too late to save your brother;” but well
the roguish Duke knew he had saved him.
“O pardon me,” she cried, “that I employed my Sovereign in my trouble.”
“You are pardoned,” he said, gaily.
At that moment Angelo and his wife re-entered. “And now, Angelo,” said the
Duke, gravely, “we condemn thee to the block on which Claudio laid his
head!”
“O my most gracious lord,” cried Mariana, “mock me not!”
“You shall buy a better husband,” said the Duke.
“O my dear lord,” said she, “I crave no
better man.”
Isabella nobly added her prayer to Mariana's, but the Duke feigned
inflexibility.
“Provost,” he said, “how came it that Claudio was executed at an unusual
hour?”
Afraid to confess the lie he had imposed upon Angelo, the Provost said, “I
had a private message.”
“You are discharged from your office,” said the Duke. The Provost then
departed. Angelo said, “I am sorry to have caused such sorrow. I prefer
death to mercy.” Soon there was a motion in the crowd. The Provost
re-appeared with Claudio. Like a big child the Provost said, “I saved this
man; he is like Claudio.” The Duke was amused, and said to Isabella, “I
pardon him because he is like your brother. He is like my brother, too, if
you, dear Isabel, will be mine.”
She was his with a smile, and the Duke forgave Angelo, and promoted the
Provost.
Lucio he condemned to marry a stout woman with a bitter tongue.
“Take it back,” she commanded; “you did not
write tenderly enough.”
Valentine was left with the letter, and condemned to write another; but
his servant Speed saw that, in effect, the Lady Silvia had allowed
Valentine to write for her a love-letter to Valentine's own self. “The
joke,” he said, “is as invisible as a weather-cock on a steeple.” He meant
that it was very plain; and he went on to say exactly what it was: “If
master will write her love-letters, he must answer them.”
On the arrival of Proteus, he was introduced by Valentine to Silvia and
afterwards, when they were alone, Valentine asked Proteus how his love for
Julia was prospering.
“Why,” said Proteus, “you used to get wearied when I spoke of her.”
“Aye,” confessed Valentine, “but it's different now. I can eat and drink
all day with nothing but love on my plate and love in my cup.”
“You idolize Silvia,” said Proteus.
“She is divine,” said Valentine.
“Come, come!” remonstrated Proteus.
“Well, if she's not divine,” said Valentine, “she is the queen of all
women on earth.”
“Except Julia,” said Proteus.
“Dear boy,” said Valentine, “Julia is not excepted; but I will grant that
she alone is worthy to bear my lady's train.”
“Your bragging astounds me,” said Proteus.
But he had seen Silvia, and he felt suddenly that the yellow-haired Julia
was black in comparison. He became in thought a villain without delay, and
said to himself what he had never said before--“I to myself am dearer than
my friend.”
It would have been convenient for Valentine if Proteus had changed, by the
power of the god whose name he bore, the shape of his body at the evil
moment when he despised Julia in admiring Silvia. But his body did not
change; his smile was still affectionate, and Valentine confided to him
the great secret that Silvia had now promised to run away with him. “In
the pocket of this cloak,” said Valentine, “I have a silken rope ladder,
with hooks which will clasp the window-bar of her room.”
Proteus knew the reason why Silvia and her lover were bent on flight. The
Duke intended her to wed Sir Thurio, a gentlemanly noodle for whom she did
not care a straw.
Proteus thought that if he could get rid of Valentine he might make Silvia
fond of him, especially if the Duke insisted on her enduring Sir Thurio's
tiresome chatter. He therefore went to the Duke, and said, “Duty before
friendship! It grieves me to thwart my friend Valentine, but your Grace
should know that he intends to-night to elope with your Grace's daughter.”
He begged the Duke not to tell Valentine the giver of this information,
and the Duke assured him that his name would not be divulged.
Early that evening the Duke summoned Valentine, who came to him wearing a
large cloak with a bulging pocket.
“You know,” said the Duke, “my desire to marry my daughter to Sir Thurio?”
“I do,” replied Valentine. “He is virtuous and generous, as befits a man
so honored in your Grace's thoughts.”
“Nevertheless she dislikes him,” said the Duke. “She is a peevish, proud,
disobedient girl, and I should be sorry to leave her a penny. I intend,
therefore, to marry again.”
Valentine bowed.
“I hardly know how the young people of to-day make love,” continued the
Duke, “and I thought that you would be just the man to teach me how to win
the lady of my choice.”
“Jewels have been known to plead rather well,” said Valentine.
“I have tried them,” said the Duke.
“The habit of liking the giver may grow if your Grace gives her some
more.”
“The chief difficulty,” pursued the Duke, “is this. The lady is promised
to a young gentleman, and it is hard to have a word with her. She is, in
fact, locked up.”
“Then your Grace should propose an elopement,” said Valentine. “Try a rope
ladder.”
“But how should I carry it?” asked the
Duke.
“A rope ladder is light,” said Valentine; “You can carry it in a cloak.”
“Like yours?”
“Yes, your Grace.”
“Then yours will do. Kindly lend it to me.”
Valentine had talked himself into a trap. He could not refuse to lend his
cloak, and when the Duke had donned it, his Grace drew from the pocket a
sealed missive addressed to Silvia. He coolly opened it, and read these
words: “Silvia, you shall be free to-night.”
“Indeed,” he said, “and here's the rope ladder. Prettily contrived, but
not perfectly. I give you, sir, a day to leave my dominions. If you are in
Milan by this time to-morrow, you die.”
Poor Valentine was saddened to the core. “Unless I look on Silvia in the
day,” he said, “there is no day for me to look upon.”
Before he went he took farewell of Proteus, who proved a hypocrite of the
first order. “Hope is a lover's staff,” said Valentine's betrayer; “walk
hence with that.”
After leaving Milan, Valentine and his servant wandered into a forest near
Mantua where the great poet Virgil lived. In the forest, however, the
poets (if any) were brigands, who bade the travelers stand. They obeyed,
and Valentine made so good an impression upon his captors that they
offered him his life on condition that he became their captain.
“I accept,” said Valentine, “provided you release my servant, and are not
violent to women or the poor.”
The reply was worthy of Virgil, and Valentine became a brigand chief.
We return now to Julia, who found Verona too dull to live in since Proteus
had gone. She begged her maid Lucetta to devise a way by which she could
see him. “Better wait for him to return,” said Lucetta, and she talked so
sensibly that Julia saw it was idle to hope that Lucetta would bear the
blame of any rash and interesting adventure. Julia therefore said that she
intended to go to Milan and dressed like a page.
“You must cut off your hair then,” said Lucetta, who thought that at this
announcement Julia would immediately abandon her scheme.
“I shall knot it up,” was the disappointing rejoinder.
Lucetta then tried to make the scheme seem foolish to Julia, but Julia had
made up her mind and was not to be put off by ridicule; and when her
toilet was completed, she looked as comely a page as one could wish to
see.
Julia assumed the male name Sebastian, and arrived in Milan in time to
hear music being performed outside the Duke's palace.
“They are serenading the Lady Silvia,” said a man to her.
Suddenly she heard a voice lifted in song, and she knew that voice. It was
the voice of Proteus. But what was he singing?
“Who is Silvia? what is she,
That all our swains commend her?
Holy, fair, and wise is she;
The heaven such grace did lend her
That she might admired be.”
Julia tried not to hear the rest, but these two lines somehow
thundered into her mind--
“Then to Silvia let us sing;
She excels each mortal thing.”
Then Proteus thought Silvia excelled Julia; and, since he sang so
beautifully for all the world to hear, it seemed that he was not only
false to Julia, but had forgotten her. Yet Julia still loved him. She even
went to him, and asked to be his page, and Proteus engaged her.
One day, he handed to her the ring which she had given him, and said,
“Sebastian, take that to the Lady Silvia, and say that I should like the
picture of her she promised me.”
Silvia had promised the picture, but she
disliked Proteus. She was obliged to talk to him because he was high in
the favor of her father, who thought he pleaded with her on behalf of Sir
Thurio. Silvia had learned from Valentine that Proteus was pledged to a
sweetheart in Verona; and when he said tender things to her, she felt that
he was disloyal in friendship as well as love.
Julia bore the ring to Silvia, but Silvia said, “I will not wrong the
woman who gave it him by wearing it.”
“She thanks you,” said Julia.
“You know her, then?” said Silvia, and Julia spoke so tenderly of herself
that Silvia wished that Sebastian would marry Julia.
Silvia gave Julia her portrait for Proteus, who would have received it the
worse for extra touches on the nose and eyes if Julia had not made up her
mind that she was as pretty as Silvia.
Soon there was an uproar in the palace. Silvia had fled.
The Duke was certain that her intention was to join the exiled Valentine,
and he was not wrong.
Without delay he started in pursuit, with Sir Thurio, Proteus, and some
servants.
The members of the pursuing party got separated, and Proteus and Julia (in
her page's dress) were by themselves when they saw Silvia, who had been
taken prisoner by outlaws and was now being led to their Captain. Proteus
rescued her, and then said, “I have saved you from death; give me one kind
look.”
“O misery, to be helped by you!” cried Silvia. “I would rather be a lion's
breakfast.”
Julia was silent, but cheerful. Proteus was so much annoyed with Silvia
that he threatened her, and seized her by the waist.
“O heaven!” cried Silvia.
At that instant there was a noise of crackling branches. Valentine came
crashing through the Mantuan forest to the rescue of his beloved. Julia
feared he would slay Proteus, and hurried to help her false lover. But he
struck no blow, he only said, “Proteus, I am sorry I must never trust you
more.”
Thereat Proteus felt his guilt, and fell on his knees, saying, “Forgive
me! I grieve! I suffer!”
“Then you are my friend once more,” said the generous Valentine. “If
Silvia, that is lost to me, will look on you with favor, I promise that I
will stand aside and bless you both.”
These words were terrible to Julia, and she swooned. Valentine revived
her, and said, “What was the matter, boy?”
“I remembered,” fibbed Julia, “that I was charged to give a ring to the
Lady Silvia, and that I did not.”
“Well, give it to me,” said Proteus.
She handed him a ring, but it was the ring that Proteus gave to Julia
before he left Verona.
Proteus looked at her hand, and crimsoned to the roots of his hair.
“I changed my shape when you changed your mind,” said she.
“But I love you again,” said he.
Just then outlaws entered, bringing two prizes--the Duke and Sir Thurio.
“Forbear!” cried Valentine, sternly. “The Duke is sacred.”
Sir Thurio exclaimed, “There's Silvia; she's mine!”
“Touch her, and you die!” said Valentine.
“I should be a fool to risk anything for her,” said Sir Thurio.
“Then you are base,” said the Duke. “Valentine, you are a brave man. Your
banishment is over. I recall you. You may marry Silvia. You deserve her.”
“I thank your Grace,” said Valentine, deeply moved, “and yet must ask you
one more boon.”
“I grant it,” said the Duke.
“Pardon these men, your Grace, and give them employment. They are better
than their calling.”
“I pardon them and you,” said the Duke. “Their work henceforth shall be
for wages.”
“What think you of this page, your Grace?” asked Valentine, indicating
Julia.
The Duke glanced at her, and said, “I think the boy has grace in him.”
“More grace than boy, say I,” laughed Valentine, and the only punishment
which Proteus had to bear for his treacheries against love and friendship
was the recital in his presence of the adventures of Julia-Sebastian of
Verona.
She hoped, however, to win this sun by
earning the gratitude of the King of France, who suffered from a lingering
illness, which made him lame. The great doctors attached to the Court
despaired of curing him, but Helena had confidence in a prescription which
her father had used with success.
Taking an affectionate leave of the Countess, she went to Paris, and was
allowed to see the King.
He was very polite, but it was plain he thought her a quack. “It would not
become me,” he said, “to apply to a simple maiden for the relief which all
the learned doctors cannot give me.”
“Heaven uses weak instruments sometimes,” said Helena, and she declared
that she would forfeit her life if she failed to make him well.
“And if you succeed?” questioned the King.
“Then I will ask your Majesty to give me for a husband the man whom I
choose!”
So earnest a young lady could not be resisted forever by a suffering king.
Helena, therefore, became the King's doctor, and in two days the royal
cripple could skip.
He summoned his courtiers, and they made a glittering throng in the throne
room of his palace. Well might the country girl have been dazzled, and
seen a dozen husbands worth dreaming of among the handsome young noblemen
before her. But her eyes only wandered till they found Bertram. Then she
went up to him, and said, “I dare not say I take you, but I am yours!”
Raising her voice that the King might hear, she added, “This is the Man!”
“Bertram,” said the King, “take her; she's your wife!”
“My wife, my liege?” said Bertram. “I beg your Majesty to permit me to
choose a wife.”
“Do you know, Bertram, what she has done for your King?” asked the
monarch, who had treated Bertram like a son.
“Yes, your Majesty,” replied Bertram; “but why should I marry a girl who
owes her breeding to my father's charity?”
“You disdain her for lacking a title, but I can give her a title,” said
the King; and as he looked at the sulky youth a thought came to him, and
he added, “Strange that you think so much of blood when you could not
distinguish your own from a beggar's if you saw them mixed together in a
bowl.”
“I cannot love her,” asserted Bertram; and Helena said gently, “Urge him
not, your Majesty. I am glad to have cured my King for my country's sake.”
“My honor requires that scornful boy's obedience,” said the King.
“Bertram, make up your mind to this. You marry this lady, of whom you are
so unworthy, or you learn how a king can hate. Your answer?”
Bertram bowed low and said, “Your Majesty has ennobled the lady by your
interest in her. I submit.”
“Take her by the hand,” said the King, “and tell her she is yours.”
Bertram obeyed, and with little delay he was
married to Helena.
Fear of the King, however, could not make him a lover. Ridicule helped to
sour him. A base soldier named Parolles told him to his face that now he
had a “kicky-wicky” his business was not to fight but to stay at home.
“Kicky-wicky” was only a silly epithet for a wife, but it made Bertram
feel he could not bear having a wife, and that he must go to the war in
Italy, though the King had forbidden him.
Helena he ordered to take leave of the King and return to Rousillon,
giving her letters for his mother and herself. He then rode off, bidding
her a cold good-bye.
She opened the letter addressed to herself, and read, “When you can get
the ring from my finger you can call me husband, but against that 'when' I
write 'never.'”
Dry-eyed had Helena been when she entered the King's presence and said
farewell, but he was uneasy on her account, and gave her a ring from his
own finger, saying, “If you send this to me, I shall know you are in
trouble, and help you.”
She did not show him Bertram's letter to his wife; it would have made him
wish to kill the truant Count; but she went back to Rousillon and handed
her mother-in-law the second letter. It was short and bitter. “I have run
away,” it said. “If the world be broad enough, I will be always far away
from her.”
“Cheer up,” said the noble widow to the deserted wife. “I wash his name
out of my blood, and you alone are my child.”
The Dowager Countess, however, was still mother enough to Bertram to lay
the blame of his conduct on Parolles, whom she called “a very tainted
fellow.”
Helena did not stay long at Rousillon. She clad herself as a pilgrim, and,
leaving a letter for her mother-in-law, secretly set out for Florence.
On entering that city she inquired of a woman the way to the Pilgrims'
House of Rest, but the woman begged “the holy pilgrim” to lodge with her.
Helena found that her hostess was a widow, who had a beautiful daughter
named Diana.
When Diana heard that Helena came from France, she said, “A countryman of
yours, Count Rousillon, has done worthy service for Florence.” But after a
time, Diana had something to tell which was not at all worthy of Helena's
husband. Bertram was making love to Diana. He did not hide the fact that
he was married, but Diana heard from Parolles that his wife was not worth
caring for.
The widow was anxious for Diana's sake, and Helena decided to inform her
that she was the Countess Rousillon.
“He keeps asking Diana for a lock of her hair,” said the widow.
Helena smiled mournfully, for her hair was as fine as Diana's and of the
same color. Then an idea struck her, and she said, “Take this purse of
gold for yourself. I will give Diana three thousand crowns if she will
help me to carry out this plan. Let her promise to give a lock of her hair
to my husband if he will give her the ring which he wears on his finger.
It is an ancestral ring. Five Counts of Rousillon have worn it, yet he
will yield it up for a lock of your daughter's hair. Let your daughter
insist that he shall cut the lock of hair from her in a dark room, and
agree in advance that she shall not speak a single word.”
The widow listened attentively, with the purse of gold in her lap. She
said at last, “I consent, if Diana is willing.”
Diana was willing, and, strange to say, the prospect of cutting off a lock
of hair from a silent girl in a dark room was so pleasing to Bertram that
he handed Diana his ring, and was told when to follow her into the dark
room. At the time appointed he came with a sharp knife, and felt a sweet
face touch his as he cut off the lock of hair, and he left the room
satisfied, like a man who is filled with renown, and on his finger was a
ring which the girl in the dark room had given him.
The war was nearly over, but one of its concluding chapters taught Bertram
that the soldier who had been impudent enough to call Helena his
“kicky-wicky” was far less courageous than a wife. Parolles was such a
boaster, and so fond of trimings to his clothes, that the French officers
played him a trick to discover what he was made of. He had lost his drum,
and had said that he would regain it unless he was killed in the attempt.
His attempt was a very poor one, and he was inventing the story of a
heroic failure, when he was surrounded and disarmed.
“Portotartarossa,” said a French lord.
“What horrible lingo is this?” thought Parolles, who had been blindfolded.
“He's calling for the tortures,” said a French man, affecting to act as
interpreter. “What will you say without 'em?”
“As much,” replied Parolles, “as I could possibly say if you pinched me
like a pasty.” He was as good as his word. He told them how many there
were in each regiment of the Florentine army, and he refreshed them with
spicy anecdotes of the officers commanding it.
Bertram was present, and heard a letter read, in which Parolles told Diana
that he was a fool.
“This is your devoted friend,” said a French lord.
“He is a cat to me now,” said Bertram, who detested our hearthrug pets.
Parolles was finally let go, but henceforth he felt like a sneak, and was
not addicted to boasting.
We now return to France with Helena, who had spread a report of her death,
which was conveyed to the Dowager Countess at Rousillon by Lafeu, a lord
who wished to marry his daughter Magdalen to Bertram.
The King mourned for Helena, but he approved of the marriage proposed for
Bertram, and paid a visit to Rousillon in order to see it accomplished.
“His great offense is dead,” he said. “Let Bertram approach me.”
Then Bertram, scarred in the cheek, knelt before his Sovereign, and said
that if he had not loved Lafeu's daughter before he married Helena, he
would have prized his wife, whom he now loved when it was too late.
“Love that is late offends the Great Sender,” said the King. “Forget sweet
Helena, and give a ring to Magdalen.”
Bertram immediately gave a ring to Lafeu, who said indignantly, “It's
Helena's!”
“It's not!” said Bertram.
Hereupon the King asked to look at the ring, and said, “This is the ring I
gave to Helena, and bade her send to me if ever she needed help. So you
had the cunning to get from her what could help her most.”
Bertram denied again that the ring was Helena's, but even his mother said
it was.
“You lie!” exclaimed the King. “Seize him, guards!” but even while they
were seizing him, Bertram wondered how the ring, which he thought Diana
had given him, came to be so like Helena's. A gentleman now entered,
craving permission to deliver a petition to the King. It was a petition
signed Diana Capilet, and it begged that the King would order Bertram to
marry her whom he had deserted after winning her love.
“I'd sooner buy a son-in-law at a fair than
take Bertram now,” said Lafeu.
“Admit the petitioner,” said the King.
Bertram found himself confronted by Diana and her mother. He denied that
Diana had any claim on him, and spoke of her as though her life was spent
in the gutter. But she asked him what sort of gentlewoman it was to whom
he gave, as to her he gave, the ring of his ancestors now missing from his
finger?
Bertram was ready to sink into the earth, but fate had one crowning
generosity reserved for him. Helena entered.
“Do I see reality?” asked the King.
“O pardon! pardon!” cried Bertram.
She held up his ancestral ring. “Now that I have this,” said she, “will
you love me, Bertram?”
“To the end of my life,” cried he.
“My eyes smell onions,” said Lafeu. Tears for Helena were twinkling in
them.
The King praised Diana when he was fully informed by that not very shy
young lady of the meaning of her conduct. For Helena's sake she had wished
to expose Bertram's meanness, not only to the King, but to himself. His
pride was now in shreds, and it is believed that he made a husband of some
sort after all.